The X-Files - Season 8

2000-2001

    8.01 "Within"

• Episode Number: 162
• Original Air Date: November 05, 2000
• Written by: Chris Carter
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Mitch Pileggi (A.D. Walter Skinner)
  • James Pickens, Jr. (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • Tom Braidwood (Frohike)
  • Dean Haglund (Langly)
  • Bruce Harwood (Byers)
  • Kirk B.R. Woller (Agent Gene Crane)
  • Jeff Gulka (Gibson Praise)
  • Jonathan Palmer (Principal)
  • Marc Gomes (Agent Danny Mosely)
  • Christine Firkins (Thea Sprecher)
  • Marty Zagon (Mr. Coeben)
  • Jo-Ann Dean (Secretary)
  • Dondre Whitfield (Agent)

Newly appointed Deputy Director Kersh organises a manhunt for Mulder and assigns Agent John Doggett to head the team. Scully and Skinner go along with the investigation but are warned by Kersh that they will be fired if anything is said about aliens.

Scully , along with the Lone Gunmen, summise that the Bounty Hunter is trying to erase all evidence of abductions and they realise that he may be going after Gibson Praise, who is now living at a school in Arizona. Agent Doggett comes to the same conclusion and his team race Scully and Skinner to the school where they find Mulder trying to kidnap Gibson.

Dedication: In Memoriam - Jim Engh 1961-2000. Jim Engh was a member of the production crew who was electrocuted while filming a scene from a scaffold for this episode. Six other crew members were injured in the accident.

Agent John Doggett is named after sports commentator Vin Scully's co-commentator, Jerry Doggett. Vin Scully is the man for whom Dana Scully is named.

The titles of this two part season premiere 'Within' and 'Without' is from a line by Deep Throat in the season 2 premiere 'The Blessing Way'. When Mulder talks to him in the dream state, Deep Throat says "Go back. Do not look into the abyss or let the abyss look into you. Awaken the sleep of reason and fight the monsters within and without."

    8.02 "Without"

• Episode Number: 163
• Original Air Date: November 12, 2000
• Written by: Chris Carter
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Mitch Pileggi (A.D. Walter Skinner)
  • James Pickens, Jr. (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • Brian Thompson (Alien Bounty Hunter)
  • Kirk B.R. Woller (Agent Gene Crane)
  • Jeff Gulka (Gibson Praise)
  • Jonathan Palmer (Principal)
  • Marc Gomes (Agent Danny Mosely)
  • Christine Firkins (Thea Sprecher)
  • Sal Landi (Agent Landau)
  • Jo-Ann Dean (Secretary)

As the search for Mulder intensifies in the Arizona desert, Gibson Praise leads Scully to believe that she is truly closer to her target, and puts himself at risk with an Alien Bounty Hunter. Meanwhile Assitant Director Kersh informs Agent Doggett that he has been assigned as Mulder's sucessor on the X-Files.

    8.03 "Patience"

• Episode Number: 164
• Original Air Date: November 19, 2000
• Written by: Chris Carter
• Directed by: Chris Carter
• Guest Cast:
  • Bradford English (Detective Abbott)
  • Gene Dynarski (Ernie Stefaniuk)
  • Dan Leegant (Myron Stefaniuk)
  • Jay Caputo (The Bat Thing)
  • Eve Brenner (Little Old Lady)
  • Annie O'Donnell (Elderly Woman)
  • Brent Sexton (Gravedigger)
  • Bryan Rasmussen (Sheriff's Deputy)
  • Gary Bullock (Tall George)

While tackling his first X-File case about a series of gruesome murders surrounding a bat-like creature, Doggett quickly learns that his investigative techniques are somewhat dissimilar to Scully's.

    8.04 "Roadrunners"

• Episode Number: 165
• Original Air Date: November 26, 2000
• Written by: Vince Gilligan
• Directed by: Rod Hardy
• Guest Cast:
  • David Barry Gary (Hank Gulatarski)
  • Lawrence Pressman (Mr. Milsap)
  • Conor O'Farrell (Sheriff Ciolino)
  • William O'Leary (Gas Station Man)
  • Rusty Schwimmer (Bus Driver)
  • Todd Jeffries (Lead Agent Mayfield)
  • Bryan Dilbeck (Disabled Man)

Scully travels to Utah, without Doggett, on a simple case. She found at the crime scene that at least a dozen people may be been involved and the body found there was on a man in his 20's with the spine of an 80-year old woman. She pulls up to a gas station in a remote town with a popular of less than 20 just to get directions and some gas. The store owner fills up her car and Scully goes on her way, only to have her car break down minutes later. She walked back to the gas station and found that the owner had put water in her car, apparently by accident.

Scully is sent to a nearby house to use a phone but the phone lines are also apparently down. Scully thinks this to be awfully coincidental and maybe more than that. She ends up staying the night at this man's house. The next morning, the man awakes her and says a man needs help. The man is seizuring and when Scully rolls him over, she finds some sort of point of entry at the base of his spine.

At a closer look, she sees that some sort of parasite and been set along his spine and gradually moving towards his brain. She tells the people they need to take him to a hospital but the townspeople say they don't have cars. When Scully and the man are alone, she says she thinks everyone here is involved in a cult and are dangerous so she gives the man her gun while she goes out to look for a car to get them out and to a hospital.

She finds an old building and starts looking around for a car when she is cornered by the townspeople and the sick man. She tells him that he had her convinced. Scully is captured and is made to watch while the town stones the sick man to death. They pull out the giant parasite, which looks like a slug, and the shove it up her spine. .

Meanwhile, Doggett is getting worried about Scully's whereabouts so he travels down there to look for her. Scully is strapped down to a bed on her stomach, with this slug-like creature, who the town believes to be the second coming of Christ, crawling along her spine. She hears Doggett's car pull up outside and tries to scream but has cloth over her mouth. Eventually, Doggett became suspicious and finds Scully. He had to carry her outside and towards the car but the townspeople found them so he hid in an old bus. Scully starts screaming that they can't let it get to her brain so he has to cut it out of her neck with a pocket knife. He gets it out just in time when the townspeople find them. He throws the creature onto the ground and shoots it repeatedly. They just stare in awe, not believing what just happened, and let Doggett carry Scully out of there. The next week, Doggett comes in talks to Scully. He tells her that the townspeople don't stand a chance in court. Then, Scully apologizes for not letting Doggett in on this case and that he should have gone with her

    8.05 "Invocation"

• Episode Number: 166
• Original Air Date: December 05, 2000
• Written by: David Amann
• Directed by: Richard Compton
• Guest Cast:
  • Kim Greist (Lisa Underwood)
  • Jim Cody Williams (Cal Jeppy)
  • Rodney Eastman (Ronnie Purcell)
  • Erich Anderson (Doug Underwood)
  • Kyle and Ryan Pepi (Billy Underwood)
  • Shiela Shaw (Marcia Purcell)
  • Barry Cullison (Sheriff Sanchez)
  • Maggie Baird (Sharon Pearl)
  • Colton James (Josh Underwood)
  • Leslie Sachs (Lisa's Friend)
  • Steve Stapenhorst (Principal)
  • Jake Fritz (Luke Doggett)

Flashback to September 1990, Lisa Underwood is sitting talking to a friend while her 7 year old son Billy plays on a swing set at the Bethune Elementary's school carnival. When she looks for her son again he has vanished. As she searches frantically for Billy a dark-haired boy walks off holding Billy's backpack. Ten years later, Lisa goes to the Elementary school to pick up her son Josh. The principal takes her to the swing set, where her son Billy is sitting there, the same age as when he disappeared. Scully and Doggett arrive at the hospital where Billy is being checked out. Scully pronounces him fit and health but he refuses to talk. Doggett treating the case as a kidnapping attempts to interview Billy to find out who took him, much to Lisa's annoyance that she refuses to co-operate further. Scully believes that Billy is not the same child, however test results prove he is.

Doggett uses the original case file on Billy's disappearance to track down the dark-haired boy, Ronnie Purnell, he goes to question him but Ronnie denies having anything to do with it. That night Lisa argues with her husband Doug about Billy's return. Next morning Josh is found covered in blood although he is unharmed. A knife found in his bedroom has never been seen before. Tests reveal that the blood is Billy's but he too is unharmed. When Ronnie is seen outside the Underwood house, Scully and Doggett question him, he claims he did not believe Billy was really there. Leading them to believe he knows more about the case.

Later, Ronnie goes into the woods and unearths the skeleton of Billy. While Doggett and Scully were questioning Ronnie, Josh goes missing. Ronnie eventually leads them to the killer and to Billy's grave. Doggett refuses to believe.

    8.06 "Redrum"

• Episode Number: 167
• Original Air Date: December 10, 2000
• Written by: Steven Maeda
• Directed by: Peter Markle
• Story by: Steven Maeda & Daniel Arkin
• Guest Cast:
  • Joe Morton (Martin Wells)
  • Bellamy Young (Janet Wilson)
  • Guy Torry (Shorty)
  • Joanna Sanchez (Trina)
  • J. Patrick McCormack (Brent Tufeld)
  • Jack Shearer (Judge Kinberg)
  • Lee Duncan (Al Cawdry)
  • Danny Trejo (Cesar Ocampo)
  • Cynthia Martells (District Attorney)

When Martin Wells, a Baltimore federal prosecutor wakes up in prison he is very confused, a radio in another cell announces that the day is Friday. A guard informs Wells that he is being transferred to another prison. In the corridor he spots an old friend agent Doggett. Outside the prison the press are gathered, as he is brought out Well's father in law steps forward and shoots him .Wells awakes again in the prison cell and is joined by Doggett and agent Scully, he is confused as to why he is in jail, Doggett informs him that he has been charged with killing his wife, Wells is shocked by the news. Later when he is taken to court to be charged, the bailiff announces that it is Thursday, the day before he was shot. The judge refuses Wells bail and orders him to be transferred to another prison the following day. Scully and Doggett join Wells in the holding cell, he tells them he is having premonitions about the future but denies killing his wife. Wells awakes once more in his cell, an attorney visits him to introduce herself as handling his case, but he knows her from his court appearance. She informs him the court appearance is tomorrow, today is Wednesday.

Wells realises that he is experiencing time in reverse, living his days backwards. He confides in Doggett and Scully, Doggett is skeptical, but Scully is more interested in why it might be happening. Wells assumes that he is being given the chance to make amends for something that happened, a second chance to put things right. Tuesday: He wakes up in Doggett's house and sees news of the murder on the television. He takes Doggett to his apartment and they watch a security video tape which shows his innocence. They find the killer. Monday: He wakes up before the murder and talks Doggett into getting the police to prevent the murder. He also confesses the murderer's motive to Doggett; he concealed evidence in a trial against the murderer's brother. The murderer is late and arrives after the police have left. He attacks Wells and his wife and Doggett arrives in time to save them. Wells ends up in jail anyway - presumably for concealing evidence.

Robert Patrick and Joe Morton worked together on Terminator 2: Judgement Day, where Patrick played the T-1000, and Morton was the creator of the future super computer, Miles Dyson.

    8.07 "Via Negativa"

• Episode Number: 168
• Original Air Date: December 17, 2000
• Written by: Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Tony Wharmby
• Guest Cast:
  • Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner)
  • James Pickens, Jr. (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • Keith Szarabajka (Anthony Tipet)
  • Tom Braidwood (Frohike)
  • Dean Haglund (Langly)
  • Bruce Harwood (Byers)
  • Kirk B.R. Woller (Agent Gene Crane)
  • Grant Heslov (Dr. Andre Bormanis)

Agent Jim Leeds is fast asleep in his government sedan when his partner, Angus Stedman, raps on the window to wake him. There has been movement in the house they are watching. They quietly creep inside to find twenty slain bodies whose skulls have all been bashed in. Stedman senses a presence behind him, and turns to see a man holding a primitive axe. Leeds hears his cry and runs toward the hallway. Stedman lies in a pool of blood. His head has the same fatal wound as the other bodies. Leeds sees the man, who now has a third eye in the center of his forehead. The man hoists the axe and swings it over Leeds.

That same night, Doggett is awakened by Scully's phone call at 4:24 am. Skinner wants his help on a case. An agent was killed while on surveillance of a religious cult in Pittsburgh. She can not join him because "something unexpected's come up." Scully does not tell him that she is being admitted into a hospital. Early the next morning, Doggett arrives at the crime scene to meet Skinner. Agent Leeds' body is in his car, which was locked from the inside. The clues lead Doggett to believe that the murder did not occur in the car. "This is damn weird," he says. They take in the ghastly scene inside the house, where all twenty members of the cult were killed with a single blow to the head. The cult's leader, Anthony Tipet, is missing. Agent Crane reports that Leeds' partner has not been found. Doggett and Skinner break into Stedman's condo, but the agent has been killed with the same head blow as Leeds. Stedman's door was chain locked from the inside.

Back in Washington, Skinner and Doggett brief Deputy Director Kersh on the case. The perpetrator left no traces of evidence. Skinner proposes that perhaps Tipet's use of an Iboga hallucinogen drug may have allowed the man's consciousness to be removed from his body. This might have allowed him to attack unnoticed. Kersh assumes that this far-fetched theory belongs to Scully. Meanwhile, Tipet walks past a homeless man on a Pittsburgh street. He uses a payphone to call Andre Bormanis' lab. "You did this," Tipet says on the machine. Bormanis listens, petrified. Bormanis then takes a razor and slices a cross into his own forehead. Tipet walks past the homeless man again, but this time Tipet's third eye appears. Suddenly the sidewalk morphs into quicksand and the homeless man sinks. Tipet raises the axe and strikes him.

When Skinner tells him that Scully is taking personal leave from work, Doggett becomes angry. He believes that Scully and Skinner are hiding something from him. Skinner has news of the homeless man's death by the same head injury. Although Doggett is skeptical, Skinner asks him to suppose that this drug really does allow Tipet's spirit to be in one place while his body is in another. They trace the payphone's last call to Andre Bormanis, a convicted drug dealer. Skinner and Doggett go to Bormanis' lab and question him about Tipet. They notice that he has a scar on his forehead. According to Bormanis, Tipet was the only one able to take the drug in order to reach the depths of the soul. Bormanis screams for protection when he is thrown in a jail cell. Doggett finds bloodstained footprints in the jail corridor, and he follows them to a lotus-sitting Tipet hovering in the air. Tipet opens all three of his eyes and looks straight at Doggett. Doggett glances down to see that the footprints lead to his own shoes. He looks at his hands and realizes that he is holding the decapitated head of Scully. Skinner wakes him -- it was only a dream. Scully is on the phone to tell Doggett to trust his instincts. It hits Doggett that Bormanis was trying to not fall asleep.

Bormanis sees Tipet at his prison cell. Suddenly rats swarm Bormains and he is eaten alive. Doggett runs to the cell, but Bormanis has been killed from the same blow to the skull. Doggett finds the Lone Gunmen in Mulder's office. Scully sent them to help out on the case. They explain the idea that a third eye would bring one closer to God. Doggett formulates the theory that Tipet truly believes he has opened his third eye, and that by invading other people's dreams, he could make their worst nightmares come true. Doggett insists that Tipet would want more of the Iboga drug to continue killing. He smiles at the Gunmen. "That's what Mulder would think, right?" he says, before leaving for Bormanis' lab.

Doggett and Skinner arrive at the lab to find Tipet standing over a rotating table saw. They order him away from the blade. "I want this to end, but I just can't stop it," he bemoans. Tipet says that Doggett understands, and Doggett realizes that Tipet knows about his dream. Tipet leans over the table saw and the blade cuts into his skin. Doggett pulls him off and brings him to the hospital. While signing Tipet in, he sees Scully's name on the roster. She has been admitted for acute abdominal pain. Doggett reports to Kersh that Tipet made people's worst nightmares come true with the use of the drug. Since Tipet is in custody, Kersh closes out the case, but Doggett pleads for it to remain open. He explains that no evidence has been found. Yet Kersh wants nothing to do with an unexplained case and closes it. Confused by his own dreams, Doggett leaves a message on Scully's machine, telling her that he knows the case doesn't really add up.

While looking at a mirror, Doggett sees Tipet standing behind him. When he turns around, the man is gone. Doggett gets into bed and doesn't see Tipet waiting by the stairs with the axe. Doggett wakes in the morning and dresses for work. His reflection looking back at him shows the third eye on Doggett's forehead. His eyes widen with shock, and all three eyes blink with disbelief. Then the eye disappears. He goes to the FBI and walks into Skinner's office in somewhat of a daze. "I'm not sure I'm awake," he tells the A.D. Doggett recounts seeing Tipet in his house with an axe, and feels that the man can see inside his dreams. Skinner tries to convince him that he needs to go home and get some sleep. Doggett walks through a strangely deserted FBI hallway on the second floor. The ends of the corridor seem to disappear into infinity. The sound of echoing footsteps reveals Tipet, who whispers in reverse-speak "She's going to die."

Doggett, who also speaks in reverse, tells him that he won't let him do that. Tipet replies that it is Doggett who will kill Scully. Doggett closes his eyes, bringing his hands to his face in great distress. He drops his hands to see that he is now in Scully's apartment building. His hands, stained with blood, hold the axe. A deep, blue light strobes in and out from the windows, and a baby's endless cry fills the room. Tears well in Doggett's eyes as he realizes why he is dreaming this. Scully is asleep in the bed and Doggett holds the axe over her. He makes a decision, and lets the axe fall. Then he raises it over his own head and swings it at himself. Before it strikes him, he is woken up by Scully in his house. He lets out a deep, ragged sigh and tells her that she just saved his life. She says that she merely woke him up to tell him that Tipet died. Doggett was scared by the violent images in his nightmare, but thinks that maybe someone else put them there. "It was a bad dream, Agent Doggett," Scully says. "But that's all it was."

In this X-Files episode where we learn that Langly's first name is 'Richard'.

    8.08 "Surekill"

• Episode Number: 169
• Original Air Date: January 07, 2001
• Written by: Greg Walker
• Directed by: Terrence O'Hara
• Guest Cast:
  • Patrick Kilpatrick (Randall Cooper)
  • Michael Bowen (Dwight Cooper)
  • Kelli Waymire (Tammi Peyton)
  • Joe Sabotino (Captain Triguero)
  • Tom Jourden (Carlton Chase)

Carlton Chase runs up to a pay phone on a nighttime street in Worcester, MA. "Pick up!" he barks into the recording answering machine. "Call him off, give me chance to explain," he begs, before a shadow appears behind him. Afraid, Chase runs off and dashes into a nearby police station. The officers on duty stare at him strangely when he cries "Help me! Somebody wants to kill me!" Chase reaches for the cop's gun, and the police tackle him, tossing him into an empty cell. Chase pleads for his safety, saying that "He can get me." Suddenly, Chase's head explodes and his blood splatters against the small window of the cell.

The next morning, Scully examines the x-ray and determines that Chase was shot through the top of his head. A small dent in the air vent louver above proves this, but no one in the station heard the gunshot. Scully and Doggett climb into the air duct, where a small bullet hole leads a beam of light to a tiny hole on the roof. After Doggett finds a scrap of fabric that muffled the gun, they determine that the shooter fired once through two floors to reach his target. Yet they can't figure out how someone could make such a lucky shot. The agents search Chase's real estate office. The walls are rife with bullet holes, but the shells on the floor do not match the ones that killed Chase. On his desk are a stack of invoices from AAA-1 Surekill Extermination.

Tammi Peyton arrives for work at AAA-1 Surekill Extermination and plays back the answering machine's messages. Chase's frantic phone call from the previous night plays and she quickly erases it. She notices Chase's photo on the front page of the newspaper reporting his death. Tammi reaches for a lock box and is interrupted by her boss, Dwight Cooper. He ignores her questions about Chase's murder. Dwight confronts his brother, Randall, about the previous night's events. Randall defends himself by saying that Chase had been stealing from Dwight. Dwight warns him to ask first before he does anything else. Later that night, Dwight enters the warehouse of two drug dealers and demands their money and drugs. He points his finger at one of the gang members and calmly says "Bang." The guy immediately falls down, shot. Dwight does the same to the second one. Randall enters from outside. He is holding a smoking gun wrapped in a towel.

Scully and Doggett investigate the crime scene, finding that the shots came from behind a wall, landing perfectly on their targets. Scully theorizes that the killer could see through the wall and Doggett dismisses her claims. She conjectures that maybe this man's eyes are somehow different than normal. Doggett believes that it was merely a drug hit. Yet after finding sulfuryl fluoride, an exterminator's chemical, on the towel scrap, he suggests they go to the exterminators named on Chase's invoices. Meanwhile, Dwight takes Tammi into a back office and she begins to undress. She senses that Randall is always watching her, and Dwight laughs her off. "How's he watching you now?" he asks. Randall stares at the door to the office, but then turns away when he hears someone coming into the building. Doggett and Scully enter, and Dwight greets them. They show him an invoice from Chase's office, but Dwight is unable to read it because he has been legally blind since childhood. He calls for Tammi, and she comes out of the office buttoning her blouse. Doggett asks why Chase called their office 14 minutes before he was killed. Tammi looks away shamefully. Dwight seems surprised, but he tells them that no message was left that night. The agents leave and Dwight confronts Tammi about the message. She admits that there was a message that she accidentally erased.

Scully and Doggett research Dwight's criminal record. He was arrested for grand theft auto, but since he is almost blind, they assume he had used a partner. They search for Randall's record and find that the two brothers are twins. In her apartment that night, Tammi is frightened by her next door neighbor's shadow on the window outside. She can't see that it is really Randall, watching her undress through the walls. Early the next morning, Tammi rushes into the office. Dwight and Randall catch her grabbing the lock box, but Scully and Doggett storm in with a search warrant. Although the lock box is empty, Scully finds a ledger with Chase Realty information in it. They bring the brothers in for questioning. As Scully interrogates Randall, he stares at the wall behind her and reads his brother's lips in the room next door. Randall repeats Dwight's statement that he is just a "regular Joe, providing a public service." Scully opines that he can see through the walls. She says that she knows about him shooting drug dealers through walls to steal their money. As the agents bring in Tammi for questioning, Dwight nods toward the girl and tells Randall that they have a problem that needs to be "taken care of." In the interview room, Tammi offers that she only keeps the books for the brothers and doesn't know anything about the drug dealers. Surmising the case, the agents believe that Chase was Dwight's fence for the drugs and was killed because he had a relationship with Tammi. Her phone records indicate she called him late at night.

Tammi again sees the shadow outside her apartment, and it moves when she calls out to Randall. She tells him that she knows he protected her and that he snatched her secret ledger book so Dwight wouldn't find it. She still, however, needs his help. She asks Randall to meet her at the 3:00 bus, and he gives her the missing ledger that holds a key. Finding Tammi's apartment emptied out, Doggett hits redial on her phone and reaches the bus station. Tammi uses the key to grab a duffel full of cash in a safe deposit box at the bank. When she returns to her car, Dwight is waiting in the backseat. He forces her to drive to the office. Left at the station, Randall believes he's been stood up. At the exterminator's office, Dwight accuses Tammi of skimming from the books with Chase. He questions why Randall would kill Chase, and then figures out that his brother has a crush on Tammi. Randall enters, and Dwight orders him to kill her. Randall points the gun at Tammi as she pleads for her life. He fires, but the bullet sails inches from her head to hit Dwight, who is outside having a cigarette.

Scully and Doggett arrest Randall, but he will not speak. He sits motionless in a cell, eyes focused on a blank wall. Randall stares at a computer monitor located many rooms away. On it is an all-points bulletin for the arrest of Tammi Peyton, with her image emblazoned on the screen.

    8.09 "Salvage"

• Episode Number: 170
• Original Air Date: January 14, 2001
• Written by: Jeffrey Bell
• Directed by: Rod Hardy
• Guest Cast:
  • Wade Andrew Williams (Ray Pearce)
  • Jennifer Parsons (Nora Pearce)
  • Arye Gross (Dr. Tom Puvogel)
  • Tamara Clatterbuck (Larina Jackson)
  • Dan Desmond (Harry Odell)
  • Scott MacDonald (Curt Delario)
  • Randy Walker (SWAT Cop)
  • Kenneth Meseroll (Owen Harris)
  • Colleen Quinn (Owen's Wife)
  • Reece Morgan (Owen Harris' Little Boy)

Curt Delario comforts Nora Pearce as she mourns her husband. "How does a 41 year-old man just wither away and die?" she asks. Since no one can provide her an explanation for Ray's death, she is convinced that he suffered from Gulf War Syndrome, and she wants someone to pay. Leaving her house, Curt turns his car out of the driveway but skids when he sees something in his path. He plows right into a man, but instead of crushing him, the car splits around the man. Curt looks through the shattered glass to see his friend, Ray Pearce, standing in the middle of the hood, unharmed. Ray shoves his fist through the windshield to grab Curt, who screams out in terror.

The next morning, Doggett and Scully scan the crime scene. The car is torn in half and Curt Delario is missing. They find him in a trash can with five deep puncture marks in his head. The autopsy reveals that he was not killed by the impact, but rather by the wounds inflicted when he was pulled through the windshield. Blood and fingerprints on the car are from the recently deceased Ray Pierce. Ray wakes up at St. Clare's Halfway House, unharmed. He pulls shards of metal out of his face.

Doggett goes to the Pearce house. Harry Odell, the owner of the Southside Salvage yard where Ray and Curt both worked, is there. Doggett asks Nora about Ray's cremation because no record of the event exists. He wonders if Ray might still be alive and is somehow involved in Curt's death. Nora rebukes this, insisting that Ray was so sick before he died that he couldn't even walk or lift his head. At the salvage yard, Harry is hurriedly feeding Ray Pearce's employee records into a shredder when Ray himself enters the trailer office. Harry grabs a gun from his desk and shoots. Ray is blown clear out of the trailer. Outside, Harry sees Ray's severed hand, which twitches. Small, interlocking metal pieces begin to repair the limb. Ray comes up behind him, unfazed by his bloody gut and missing arm. He grabs Harry's head and punctures the man's skull with his fingers.

In checking out the aftermath, Doggett notices blue paint on Harry's fingernails. He pulls a half-torn paper out of the shredder -- an invoice from Chambers Technologies. The person on the invoice, Dr. David Clifton, no longer works there. His successor, Dr. Puvogel, tells Doggett that Clifton was working on a smart metal that can regenerate itself. He also says that their company would have no use of any local salvage yards. Scully phones Doggett from the morgue, informing him that Ray's cell makeup was affected by exposure to a non-identifiable metal. Tests show that his blood has enough metal alloy to kill an elephant. At the halfway house, volunteer social worker Larina sees a news report on Harry Odell's murder, recognizes Ray and phones Ray's wife.

Ray pursues Dr. Puvogel, and the agents lure him to Chambers Technologies. Ray gets captured in a test chamber and his fists dent the four-inch metal doors. He escapes by ripping open the thick metal of the back wall. Blood left on the jagged wall begins to turn itself into metal. Remanding Dr. Puvogel to safety, Doggett notices that a row of stacked barrels are painted the same color blue found on Harry Odell's fingers.

Nora waits for her husband at the halfway house, and asks him why he didn't contact her. "I'm not me," he responds, before showing her that his body is a mix of flesh and metal. He tells her that the people who did this to him must pay. At Southside Salvage, Doggett uncovers blue barrels with the Chambers Technology logo underneath the paint. When he turns one over, a think river of silver liquid pours out with a human body made of metal. It is the missing Dr. Clifton. Scully and Doggett question Puvogel, who tells them that Clifton got poisoned from working on an alloy with genetic material in it. Puvogel was aware that Clifton was dying, but did not know how his body was sent to the salvage yard. Suddenly, Doggett sees Nora Pearce sneaking around the Chambers hallway. She is searching for the name of the person responsible for her husband's disfigurement, but is caught before she gave the name to Ray. A SWAT team is sent to the halfway house, but they are too late. Ray kills Larina and escapes. Scully and Doggett beg Nora for her help in preventing Ray from hurting anyone else, and she agrees to have her house watched by the police. Ray slips in and persuades Nora to tell him the name of the person from Chambers Technologies who made him inhuman. When he leaves, Nora rushes out of the house, hysterical. She tells the police that her husband had just been there and that he is going to kill a man named Owen Harris.

Ray intercepts Harris' car, pulls him from the driver's seat and says "You made me." The man's wife and child scream in terror. Harris doesn't understand because he's only an accountant and had waste transferred to Southside Salvage because he was told to do so. As Harris' son cries in the backseat, Ray's eyes blink with the last light of kindness left in him. He lets the man go.

Later, Doggett and Scully arrive at the scene. Harris is alive, being treated by a medic. The agents are puzzled as to why Ray didn't kill him, but Scully surmises that Ray's body had died, and what was left was a machine. Whatever bit of humanity was still in him may have saved Harris. At Southside Salvage, a car gets dumped into a compactor. Ray is inside the crushed car, calmly accepting his inevitable conclusion.

Agent Doggett comments that you can only see metal men in movies; a reference to him playing the liquid-metal T-1000 in Terminator 2 - Judgement Day.

    8.10 "Badlaa"

• Episode Number: 171
• Original Air Date: January 21, 2001
• Written by: John Shiban
• Directed by: Tony Wharmby
• Guest Cast:
  • Michael Welch (Trevor)
  • Jordan Blake Warkol (Quinton)
  • Deep Roy (Beggar Man)
  • Bill Dow (Chuck Burks)
  • Andy Hubbell (Quinton's Father)
  • Jane Daly (Mrs. Holt)
  • Maura Soden (Trevor's Mother)
  • Christopher Hutson (Mr. Burrard)
  • Calvin Remsberg (Hugh Potocki)
  • Jacob Franchek (Red-Headed Kid)
  • Mimi Savage (Teacher)
  • Winston Story (Bellboy)
  • Tony Adelman (Trevor's Dad)
  • Kiran Rao (Customs Agent)

American Hugh Potocki enters the airport in Mumbai, India on his way back home. A local beggar with no legs follows him on a wheeled cart into the restroom. Potocki is yanked out from under the bathroom stall by an unseen force. Later, Potocki arrives at his hotel in Washington, DC. A bellboy brings his luggage with the beggar's cart strapped on. Potocki sits on the bed and his eyes glaze over with blood. Another pool of blood flows from his body, staining the bedspread. Scully and Doggett investigate the crime scene at the hotel where Potocki's body was found. The agents spot a small, bloodied handprint, about the size of a child's, on the bed. An autopsy reveals Potocki suffered massive abdominal tissue damage. Scully is unsure whether something went in or came out of his rectal wall. There is no evidence that the man had been smuggling drugs, but a decay analysis does prove that he had already been dead before he left India.

Mrs. Holt, the principal of Fairmont Elementary in Maryland, interviews a normal-looking man for a potential job as a custodian. Yet she does not really see that the person sitting across from her is the legless beggar. A fight breaks out in front of the school between seventh-grader Trevor and the younger Quinton. Quinton's father arrives in time to break up the squabble. The mysterious new custodian watches from nearby. Meanwhile, Doggett traces a similar death in India several days earlier that involves another heavyset American businessman. Scully introduces the idea that a living being is using these victims to stowaway by freely entering the bodies. Doggett doesn't readily accept this notion.

Later that night, Quinton sees the beggar's reflection in his bedroom mirror, but his father dismisses the boy's fears as merely a nightmare. When the father goes back downstairs, the beggar man is there. Hearing a scream, Quinton runs down the stairs to find his father dead. The man's eyes are filled with blood. Scully and Doggett investigate and Quinton tells them that he saw a man with no legs. Finding the identical small handprints as in Potocki's hotel room, the agents suspect the same killer. Yet Quinton's father showed no sign of abdominal damage. At the autopsy, the man's stomach is distended. Scully slices into the body, and a tiny hand reaches out through the incision. Scully jumps back, and grabs her gun. Whatever was in the body has disappeared, leaving a trail of coagulated blood across the floor. Scully follows it to a closet, but sees nothing inside. However, the beggar man is in the closet. Somehow he hodes his presence from Scully. When Scully and Doggett consult with Chuck Burks, he explains that there are siddhi mystics who have the power to manipulate reality. These Indian mystics, however, are religious and committing murder would endanger their souls. Scully shows him a report of an American chemical plant that killed many people in India, one of whom is the son of a holy man. Because siddhi mystics pass their skills from father to son, and his only son's death effecetively ends his legacy, Scully questions whether this man is out for revenge.

Trevor tells Quinton that he may know who killed his father. As he walks down the street, Trevor hears the squeaking of the beggar's wheeled cart, but no one is around. His mother, meanwhile, sees her son's body floating in the backyard pool and dives in after him. As she gets closer, she realizes that it is not Trevor but the beggar man. Scully and Doggett later scrutinize the woman's blood-filled eyes and question how her death fits into the case. Trevor returns home and tells the agents that the "little man" followed him. They call the janitor in for questioning, but he does not speak. Chuck sets up a video camera and focuses it on the janitor. The camera shows there is no one sitting in the interrogation room. They realize their suspect may be anywhere.

Mrs. Holt sees the custodian at the school later that night, but he does not answer her when she calls out to him. The principal immediately calls Scully. Trevor and Quinton lie in wait in the school building. When the beggar enters the janitorial closet, Trevor tosses bottles of chemicals on him. Yet the shattered glass seems to have hit nothing and the beggar disappears. Instead, the beggar chases Quinton in to a classroom with windows that won't budge open. Trevor is outside the window, yelling to his friend that he will get help. Suddenly, Scully and Mrs. Holt enter the classroom but they can't see the beggar man. He has transformed himself into Trevor. Quinton pleads with Scully to shoot at what she thinks is Trevor, but she is unable to fire at a child. Doggett arrives outside and hears gunshots. He runs in the classroom, with Trevor following him. The little beggar man lies dead on the floor.

Later, Scully is still shaken by the experience. She tells Doggett that she was unable to trust her own eyes, but fired her gun because the boys saw the truth. She realizes that it is what Mulder's open mind would have seen. "Maybe if I could see through Mulder's eyes I could understand," she says. The beggar man, still alive, rolls his cart in an airport in pursuit of another passenger.

    8.11 "The Gift"

• Episode Number: 172
• Original Air Date: February 04, 2001
• Written by: Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Mitch Pileggi (Assistant Director Walter Skinner)
  • Caroline Lagerfelt (Rustic Woman)
  • Tom Braidwood (Frohike)
  • Dean Haglund (Langly)
  • Bruce Harwood (Byers)
  • Jordan Marder (Creature)
  • Natalie Radford (Marie Hangmuhl)
  • Michael McGrady (Sheriff Kurt Frey)
  • Justin Williams (Paul Hangemuhl)

In a flashback, a car drives up to a semi-rural house in the middle of a rainstorm. A man gets out and enters the house, which is marked with a strange symbol in blood. Inside are Marie and Paul Hangemuhl, hiding a creature with ruined skin and cataracted eyes. The unseen man raises his gun and fires at the mysterious creature. It falls to the ground. He goes back to his car and drives away. The man is Mulder.

It is present day when Doggett arrives at the Sheriff's Station in Squamash, Pennsylvania to dig up clues about Mulder's disappearance. Sheriff Frey tells him that Mulder had been there the past spring to investigate the disappearance of Marie Hangemuhl, who was later found to have never been absent from her house. Although Mulder left no trace of this investigation in his files, Doggett uncovered cell phone records indicating he had been to the town the week before his abduction. The Sheriff brings Doggett to the Hangemuhl home, where they find a sickly Marie Hangemuhl suffering from kidney failure. She admits to meeting Mulder the previous spring, when he had asked about her disappearance. Her husband, Paul, quickly interjects that nothing out of the ordinary had gone on and that they never saw Mulder again. He claims that Mulder had been interested in an Indian folk legend about a creature from the woods that eats people. When they leave, Doggett mentions to the Sheriff that he spotted patches in the wall of the Hangemuhl house that could be bullet holes.

Returning to Washington, Doggett searches Mulder's apartment. He overturns every drawer and finds a pistol underneath the sink. He later asks Skinner about the mystery case, as well as an unreported three rounds discharged from the gun. Test results show that blood had splattered back, meaning Mulder had fired at close range. Although Skinner tries to defend Mulder and dismiss Doggett's claims, the paperwork proves that Scully had signed off on the falsified report. Doggett pledges that he will not take the situation to a review board, but will investigate further.

Back in Pennsylvania, a lynch mob converges on a rundown house in the woods. Paul Hangemuhl is among them. The leader of the group, Sheriff Frey, demands that it be sent outside. An old woman in the cabin tells the men that it is dead. Suddenly, a side door bursts open and a figure bolts out of the house into the woods. The men chase it, capturing what appears to be a deformed man. Don't do this to him! the woman cries. Later, Doggett and Skinner confront the Sheriff about the body of an unidentified transient found the day after Mulder's visit to the Hangemuhl home. The Sheriff is resistant to their charges, but they discover that the transient's grave has been unearthed. The casket is empty, and it appears that someone dug themselves out of the grave. Doggett becomes even more suspicious of the townspeople.

Paul Hangemuhl is painting the strange symbol on his front door with chicken's blood when the Sheriff arrives, inquiring about Marie's readiness. The deformed creature is taken from a cage and brought into the house, where Marie lies naked on the floor. It unhinges its jaw and rips into her body. She screams, as her husband silently prays in the next room. Doggett and Skinner return to the Hangemuhl home, looking for the missing Marie. Skinner spots a pool of blood seeping from under the couch. Doggett suggests that Mulder had been trying to protect Marie from whoever was buried in that coffin. Meanwhile, in a secret cave, the creature regurgitates a murky liquid into an outline of a human figure dug in the ground.

The remnants of a blood symbol are found on the Hangemuhl home. The Lone Gunmen analyze the symbol, via an internet feed, and tell Doggett and Skinner that it may summon a shaman to the house to aid the sick. Legend has it that a soul eater consumes illnesses. Doggett thinks that maybe it was connected to Marie's kidney disease and that maybe there wasn't really a transient buried in that coffin. The agents visit the old woman in the cabin because she had originally found the transient's body. Doggett tells her his theory that Mulder tried to kill the creature to protect Marie Hangemuhl, but the woman says he's got it all backwards. Doggett sees a cellar door in her house and goes down. He finds a fully-formed Marie on the ground, naked, covered in a gooey substance. He wraps her up and takes her to the hospital. She successfully recovers, and her kidneys have spontaneously healed. The soul eater actually took her to cure her, and Doggett realizes that Mulder was not trying to protect Marie when he shot at the creature.

Doggett returns to the home of the old woman, and she explains that people do not understand the creature's gift. It looks deformed because it takes on people's sicknesses. Mulder had come to Pennsylvania to try to save himself from his own illness. When he saw the creature's suffering, he couldn't go through with it. Mulder decided to shoot the creature to take its pain away. It was then buried, but didn't die. The townspeople know it is still alive and want it to help their sick, causing the creature to continue to suffer. Doggett carefully puts the creature in his car when the Sheriff and other townspeople show up. They demand the creature be given back because there are sick people who need to be healed. The Sheriff shoots Doggett in the chest and the creature escapes. The townspeople bury Doggett's dead body and leave. Later, the creature brings Doggett back to life in the cave. He awakes in the human outline, covered in goo. The old woman is tending to the dying creature that took away Doggett's death. You freed it, she cries.

Back at the FBI, Doggett sits at his computer. He's at a loss on what to write in his case report. He tells Skinner that he's not any closer to finding Mulder. You got inside his head, Skinner says, advising him not to write up a report. Doggett, however, wants the truth to be told. You and I both know what happened out there, the A.D. says. No one else needs to. As Skinner leaves, Doggett imagines that Mulder is standing in the office, watching him.

    8.12 "Medusa"

• Episode Number: 173
• Original Air Date: February 11, 2001
• Written by: Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Richard Compton
• Guest Cast:
  • Vyto Ruginis (Lt. Bianco)
  • Penny Johnson (Dr. Hellura Lyle)
  • Brent Sexton (Steven Melnick)
  • Judith Scott (Dr. Kai Bowe)
  • Adam Gordon (Transit Cop)
  • Bill Jacobson (Gangbanger)
  • Ken Jenkins (Deputy Chief Karras)
  • Christopher and Kevin Graves (Kid)
  • Mary Kathleen Gordon (Woman)

A man waits alone on the Clay Street train platform in Boston. He is an undercover transit cop who, speaking into a microphone on his lapel, describes a gangbanger that has jumped the turnstile. The train arrives, and the cop steps in the empty car as it moves into a tunnel. The gangbanger enters from another car. Suddenly, the train lurches to an abrupt stop and loses its power. Strobes of bright light fill the car, and a man's scream is heard. The gangbanger jumps down on the tracks and runs off into the tunnel. At the next stop, incoming passengers see the officer's body on the floor of the car. Huge chunks of his face and body have been eaten away, revealing sections of skull and skeleton.

At the Boston Transit Operations Center, Scully and Doggett talk with Deputy Transit Police Chief Karras, who wants to reopen the line in time for the afternoon rush hour. Scully insists on keeping the train closed until the man's cause of death can be determined. Armed and wearing a flak jacket, Doggett proceeds into the tunnel, joined by Police Lieutenant Bianco, Center for Disease Control pathogen expert Hellura Lyle and transit engineer Steven Melnick. Scully, manning the expedition from above ground, communicates with Doggett by radio and video camera. As they venture into the tunnel, they find it to be unusually hot because ventilation was shut down. Suddenly, Melnick screams, indicating a burn on his neck. Dr. Lyle does a sample analysis on a puddle that the group had passed, but finds that the liquid is only seawater.

In the darkness, Lt. Bianco sees a figure move. Doggett chases after it into an unused and obsolete tunnel, and gets attacked by a man with horrifyingly decayed features. The man is the gangbanger who previously ran off into the tunnels. Lt. Bianco is ready to end the search when Melnick spots three bodies wrapped in plastic. Dr. Lyle sees a shadow run off, but, upon investigation, the team can't find anyone. Scully, believing a contagion is still a risk factor, directs them to leave the bodies and continue into the main tunnel. Melnick screams again, this time with burns on his arms and hands. Scully orders them to pour fresh water on Melnick from their canteens. She guesses that they may be facing some kind of bio-chemical agent. While Dr. Lyle stays with Melnick, Doggett and Bianco start into a side tunnel. No one notices Lt. Bianco's hand glowing faintly green. Scully meets the hazmat team as they bring out Dr. Lyle, the deteriorating Melnick and the three dead victims. She orders that the bodies be taken to the CDC and accuses Karras of hiding dead bodies that he knew were down there.

Doggett and Bianco trudge into the next tunnel. Bianco's face and hands begin to glow green, but it has no other effect on him. He tries to leave, but Doggett pulls a gun on him. Bianco kicks him in the face, knocking Doggett out, and he escapes. Doggett now has the green fluorescent glow on his skin. Scully, meanwhile, gets a visit from Dr. Kai Bowe, a marine biologist. She has analyzed the water from the tunnel, and has found that it contains a sea creature, called a medusa, which is why the CDC missed it when they inspected the liquid. The medusas glow with bioelectricity, but do not burn people on contact. Something triggers it. Scully fears the worst for her partner.

Doggett wakes up and speaks to Scully on the radio. If he is to stop the spread of the contaminant, he needs to find Lt. Bianco. Karras tells Scully that he has reopened the subway and there are already passengers on the platform. It is now becoming urgent to protect the thousands of passengers. Doggett locates Bianco, lying in the tunnel. Scully tells Doggett to get out, but Bianco begs him to stay. Doggett helps Bianco walk, and they see a child's shadow. The boy, who is unaffected, points to a wall. Scully figures out that sweat triggers the electricity. Since the boy's sweat glands aren't fully developed, he has not been affected. The boy motions Doggett toward a big leak in the ceiling with water running from the bay. He leads him to a main track, where trains from the reopened system are about to cross. Doggett is faced with a train heading towards him. He places Bianco's gun on the third rail, which triggers a spark when the train hits it. The electricity charges into the puddles of seawater, killing the medusa. It vanishes from Doggett's and Bianco's skin.

Doggett is later treated at Boston General Hospital. Scully tells him that he is rid of the organism and is perfectly fine. The boy is with social services. Plastic surgeons are working on Melnick and Bianco, and the three bodies' deaths are being attributed to an unknown pathogen. Since there is no proof that Karras endangered people's lives, he can't be criminally charged for keeping the trains running. He was merely doing his job. Scully congratulates Doggett for saving all those people's lives. You figured it out, he tells her. I was just your eyes and ears.

    8.13 "Per Manum"

• Episode Number: 174
• Original Air Date: February 18, 2001
• Written by: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Adam Baldwin (Knowle Rohrer)
  • Jennifer Griffin (Dr. Miryum)
  • David Purdham (Dr. Lev)
  • Jay Acovone (Duffy Haskell)
  • Saxon Trainor (Mrs. Hendershot)
  • Steven Anderson (Dr. Parenti)
  • Megan Follows (Kath McCready)
  • Diana Castle (Delivery Nurse)
  • Elizabeth Cheap (Second Nurse)
  • Christopher Staneley (Agent Joe Farah)
  • Karl T. Wright (First Associate)
  • Alexandra Margulies (Second Associate)
  • Victoria Gallegos (Receptionist)

Pregnant Kath McCready is in labor. She sweats in the delivery room as Duffy Haskell coaches her breathing. "You're in safe hands now," he says. The baby's heart registers unusually high on the monitor, and the doctor orders an emergency C-section. When Haskell goes out to scrub up for the surgery, a nurse locks him out of the delivery room. Through her drug-induced haze, McCready can barely see the baby being pulled out of her stomach. It is an alien.

In her apartment, Scully scans her own ultrasound image and strokes her growing belly. Later, she heads into the office to find Doggett talking to Duffy Haskell. The man had contacted Mulder eight years ago about his wife, who is now dead. "They killed her," he tells the agents. He says that Kath was a multiple abductee, and aliens had performed procedures on her that gave her cancer. Although she was subsequently cured, she was left barren. She was later implanted with an embryo and gave birth to an alien. All the doctors who were in cahoots with this procedure murdered Kath and stole her alien baby because it was proof. Although his story rings a bell with Scully, she dismisses Haskell. Doggett says that his tale sounds familiarly like Scully's case, "except for the pregnancy." Walking out of the office, she chastens Doggett and tells him to stay out of her personal files. Scully's head is spinning with fear and confusion when she enters the elevator. She thinks back to a prior conversation with Mulder where she acknowledged that she wasn't ready to accept that she will never have children. "There's something I haven't told you," Mulder confesses. He admits to having found her ova in a lab (seen in 4X15) and after taking them to a specialist, learned that they were not viable. Still in the elevator, Scully wakes from her daydream to find Doggett staring at her. She tells him that there is nothing to do about Haskell's case.

Scully roams the stark white interior of Zeus Genetics in Germantown, MD looking for somebody to assist her. Suddenly she hears screaming from an examination room. It is a woman begging for another opinion. Scully ducks into a door to prevent being caught spying, and finds herself in a room with scores of jars. The jars are filled with deformed fetuses. Dr. Lev startles her, and she tells him she is worried about her friend. "You're here with Mrs. Hendershot?" he asks, before ushering her out the office. Scully rushes back to her apartment to call her personal geneticist, Dr. Parenti. She asks him to compare her own ultrasound against the one that Duffy Haskell provided. Parenti assures her that she will be fine and hangs up, but Parenti is standing in Zeus Genetics' room of fetus jars. He unwraps a small alien corpse on a dissecting table. It is the baby that Kath McCready gave birth to.

Flashback to the previous year: In his waiting room, Dr. Parenti notifies Scully that her ova can be successfully used to impregnate her. He asks if she has someone in mind as a donor, and Scully nods thoughtfully, saying that she has to figure out how to ask the person. Scully sits in the same waiting room, present day. After reviewing the images, Dr. Parenti certifies that both her ultrasound as well as the Haskell results are both normal. Yet he advises her to let the FBI know about her condition. When Scully returns to the office, Doggett says that Parenti's office called about an ultrasound she dropped off, and since Parenti was the doctor who Duffy Haskell consulted, Doggett questions Scully's investigating the Haskell case when she specifically told him not to. Later, Skinner and Doggett interrogate Haskell about his threatening letters to doctors. He tells them that Dr. Lev was the one who stole Kath's baby. The agents warn him not to keep up with the threats, and Haskell says "there are other women out there, just like Kath." Haskell leaves them and dials Dr. Lev at Zeus Genetics, revealing that he too is involved in the conspiracy. Regarding Mrs. Hendershot, the doctor tells Haskell that "it's time to let her go."

Scully returns to her apartment and remembers another Mulder discussion from the year before. She is nervously awkward when he arrives at her door with an answer to her request. "I wouldn't want this to come between us," Mulder says, in response to his being her sperm donor. "But the answer is yes." Scully cries tears of joy and hugs him. Scully resumes present day, when there is a knock on her door. It is a distraught Mary Hendershot from the genetic clinic. "My baby is in danger," she says. "So is yours."

Doggett pulls up to a diner in downtown Washington at 3:33 am where Skinner and Scully are waiting. Scully has asked for a leave of absence from the FBI, but is cryptic about her reasons. Smarting from the disrespect, Doggett gets up, saying offhandedly "Drop me a line if you get a chance." Mary Hendershot is in Scully's front seat, but neither Skinner nor Doggett know who she is. The women go to the Walden-Freedman Research Center and are met by Dr. Miryum. Scully explains that Mrs. Hendershot's life may be in danger and that she believes this baby is not hers. Mrs. Hendershot's conception dates do not add up and she is sure that her pregnancy was caused by an abduction. Dr. Miryum performs an ultrasound test on Scully that proves her child is normal and healthy, but to be sure she suggests an amniocentesis test.

Meanwhile, Doggett learns that Duffy Haskell has gone under a different first name and was buried as a Marine in 1970. He assumes that Haskell is really working for an underground conspiracy and he approaches an old friend, Knowle Rohrer, about Haskell's identity. Although Rohrer's job is not apparent, he assures Doggett that there is no conspiracy at work and he will look further into Haskell's files.

Dr. Miryum withdraws the amnio needle, warning Scully to be still. After the doctor leaves the room, Scully notices that her ultrasound image is being retrieved from a VCR. She removes the videotape and realizes she has been viewing someone else's fetus. Scully goes into the delivery room for Mrs. Hendershot, clutching the wound from the amnio needle on her stomach. "I have to get you out of here," she tells her, putting the woman's baby and her own health at risk.

That same night, Doggett rushes to the FBI, demanding Skinner to locate Scully. He believes that she may be in danger, knowing that Haskell can not be trusted. Scully and Mrs. Hendershot escape the research center and run right into Knowle Rohrer, who claims that Doggett sent him. A team of armed men described as experienced field medics throw the women into a black truck. When police cars intercept the truck, it travels off-road into the woods. Suddenly, Mrs. Hendershot goes into labor, and Scully orders the truck to stop so as not to endanger the pregnant woman's life. As the men lay down Mrs. Hendershot, Rohrer drugs Scully and prevents her from witnessing the birth. In her haze, she hears the distorted cry of an alien baby.

Scully awakes the next morning in a hospital room. Doggett is at her side, assuring her that she and her child are both healthy. He also tells her that Mary Hendershot is fine and delivered a normal baby boy. Scully contends that the men switched the babies, but Doggett thinks she has overreacted to everything. The tape that showed her ultrasound was recorded onto an old cassette, and Rohrer's men say that they saved her life. Scully insists that, from the minute Duffy Haskell walked into their office, they were set up to get Mary Hendershot's baby and cover it up. Doggett asks why she didn't reveal her pregnancy, and Scully reluctantly responds that she was afraid that the FBI would take her off the X-files. "Then I couldn't find Mulder," she says. Doggett comforts her, and promises that he will help her find Mulder.

Scully thinks back again to the previous year, finding Mulder in her apartment. She tells him that the artificial insemination -- her last chance to get pregnant -- did not work. "Never give up on a miracle," Mulder says, and gently kisses her forehead.

    8.14 "This Is Not Happening"

• Episode Number: 175
• Original Air Date: February 25, 2001
• Written by: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Annabeth Gish (Special Agent Monica Reyes)
  • Roy Thinnes (Jeremiah Smith)
  • Judd Trichter (Richie Szalay)
  • Judson Scott (Absalom)
  • Sarah Koskoff (Teresa Hoese)
  • Bernard White (Dr. Strauss)
  • Eddie Kay Thomas (Gary Cory)
  • Arlene Pileggi (Skinner's Assistant)
  • John McGonegle (Uniformed Cop)
  • Roz Witt (Night Nurse)
  • Randy Ross (Nike Man)

A car chases a white light as it moves through the sky in Helena, Montana. The driver, Richie Szalay (last seen in Season 7 ep 22), snaps photographs of the light until it comes to a halt. It is a UFO, hovering above the trees. Richie gets out of the car and is speechless. The craft gets away before he can take its picture, and Richie yells "This is not happening!" in frustration to himself. He notices a man walking toward the spot where the spaceship landed and Richie calls out to him. As the man runs away, Richie follows, but he stumbles over a woman's body lying naked on the ground.

Back at the FBI, Doggett opens up a desk drawer to find Mulder's nameplate inside. He is somewhat troubled, but is startled by Scully rushing in the office. He won't tell her why he called her, but instead takes her up to Skinner. Both men are reluctant to tell Scully whatever news they are hiding. Skinner finally reveals that there was a UFO encounter in Montana and the man who reported it is Richie Szalay, whom Mulder and Scully met the previous spring in Oregon. "Are you trying to tell me this has something to do with Mulder?" she asks. Richie found Teresa Hoese, the woman abducted the same time as Mulder. She was returned, but she is barely alive.

The agents travel to Montana to see Teresa. Her doctor describes her condition as if someone was performing torturous experiments. She has scars on her cheeks, and there is damage to her soft palette and abdomen, but there are no foreign implants in her body. Scully, Doggett and Skinner pay a visit to Richie, who had been trying to find his friend Gary. Gary was also abducted right before Mulder. Richie had followed UFO sightings to Montana where he came across the craft. Doggett shows Richie plaster castings of footprints from the scene. The prints are of Nike sneakers, and Doggett doubts that the man Richie saw was actually an alien. After the questioning, Scully confronts Doggett about his refusal to accept any explanations outside of the ordinary. Doggett says that she is the one who is afraid to confront the truth about what might have happened to Mulder.

Mulder lies bound in the alien chair, but no experiments are being done. His body has decayed so much that he appears to be dead. Suddenly Scully awakes from her sleep and realizes that it was merely a nightmare. She knocks on Skinner's motel room door, teary-eyed. "What if he's dead?" she cries. Skinner tries to comfort her, assuring her that they still might find Mulder alive. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Smith, the alien healer last seen in Season 4 ep01, walks into the hospital wearing Nike sneakers. When a nurse approaches him, he immediately morphs into Teresa Hoese's doctor and tells the nurse that he wants Teresa transferred.

The phone wakes Scully in her motel room. She is notified about Teresa Hoese being moved. Scully meets Doggett and Skinner in the field where Teresa was found. Doggett asks that they listen to another point of view, and introduces them to Special Agent Monica Reyes, who is standing alone on a cliff, smoking. Doggett thinks Reyes has some expertise that might come in handy. Reyes explains that she has been briefed of the case and describes it as "interesting." She characterizes Teresa's injuries as similar to what has been found in cult abuse cases, wondering if perhaps there was some kind of abduction group of followers that Mulder got caught up with. Much to the consternation of Scully and Skinner, Doggett insists that they go after the cult leader. Based on a hunch, Reyes believes that Teresa was meant to be left alive. Scully walks away, telling Doggett that Reyes makes no sense, but Doggett insists that he will not go on a wild goose chase after another Alien Bounty Hunter. Meanwhile, a man named Absalom walks into a small boarding house where Jeremiah Smith is treating the ailing Teresa Hoese. Absalom watches as the alien healer places his hand over Teresa's face. Her bruising magically disappears.

In the hospital, Scully catches Reyes examining Teresa's brain scans. Reyes admits that she is looking for alien implants. Scully questions why a disbeliever like her would be looking for such a thing. Reyes disputes the claim. "Let's just say I don't not believe," Reyes says. "I try to stay open." Reyes explains that she has certain spiritual notions, and although she doesn't have any feelings about Mulder she does sense Scully's fear. She advises Scully to try and stay open too. Later, Reyes drives along a Montana highway. Her car putters off and then immediately turns back on. She sees a bright light in the sky above her. "No freakin' way," she mutters and sets off after it. The light disappears over the mountain, and she sees Jeremiah Smith (wearing Nike sneakers) and Absalom pick up a body stranded in the field. Reyes pulls out her gun and orders them to halt. They manage to escape in a pickup truck, but Reyes sees another body lying on the ground. It is Gary Cory, Richie's friend who was abducted in Season 7 ep22.

Scully performs the autopsy on Gary, finding radial scarring on his ankles, wrist and face. This matches what she dreamed Mulder had been exposed to. Skinner and Doggett look on, but she becomes emotional and stops the autopsy. Richie is brought into the medical bay and is stunned by the sight of his friend's body. Scully breaks down. Waiting outside, Doggett is approached by Reyes. She senses that he is hurting for his partner. Reyes compares this to a past case where they unsuccessfully looked for Doggett's missing son. She believes that this is why Doggett is so determined to find Mulder. Reyes shows him a police wanted poster of Absalom, the man she saw in the field. He was the leader of a doomsday cult and the license plate on the pickup truck they were driving is registered to a nearby farm.

At the farm, Jeremiah Smith orders Absalom to move the legion of followers out. "They're coming," he says. "You can't let them find him." Federal agents swarm the farm and round up the people. Skinner, Scully, Doggett and Reyes are among the SWAT team. They find Teresa Hoese, fully healed, in one of the beds. While interrogated by Doggett, Absalom says that he can't explain why it happens. The spaceship drops off the injured abductees, and he comes to retrieve them with the sole purpose of helping them. Doggett doubts his intentions. Although there are cameras on the compound, there is no footage of Teresa being healed. Scully shows Absalom a photo of Mulder and asks if there is videotape of him. Absalom has no answer.

That night, Scully returns to the motel, but the lights in her room do not work. She is amazed to see Mulder standing by the window of her room. Reyes approaches and the image of Mulder disappears. Reyes brings her to see tapes from the compound. Scully recognizes the other man on the tapes as Jeremiah Smith, the Alien Healer. On the videotape recorded during the FBI raid, Smith morphs into Agent Doggett. The agents return to the farm compound to look for Jeremiah Smith. Scully pulls out one unrecognizable man who is wearing the Nike sneakers and he morphs into Jeremiah Smith. He tells her that by exposing him she is putting abductees in danger. "Where's Mulder?" she pleads with the healer, but before he can answer, Skinner asks her to come outside. "You must protect me," Smith says to her. Skinner tells Scully that they found Mulder and she takes off for the field. Mulder is lying on the ground, dead. She runs back to get Jeremiah Smith for his healing powers, but the lights of a spacecraft shine overhead. The ship hovers over the compound and the other agents watch as the light radiates the building. Scully rushes into the room where she had just interrogated Smith. He is gone. Scully cries out in frustration and horror: "This is not happening!"

Arlene Pileggi, plays Assistant to her actual husband Mitch (A.D. Skinner).

    8.15 "Dead Alive"

• Episode Number: 176
• Original Air Date: April 01, 2001
• Written by: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Tony Wharmby
• Guest Cast:
  • Nicholas Lea (Krycek)
  • James Pickens, Jr. (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • Tom Braidwood (Frohike)
  • Dean Haglund (Langly)
  • Bruce Harwood (Byers)
  • Judson Scott (Absalom)
  • Zachary Ansley (Billy Miles)
  • Sheila Larkin (Mrs. Scully)
  • Gibby Brand (Arthur Gaffin)
  • Larry Dorf (Pathology Assistant)
  • Richard McGonagle (Dr. Orovetz)
  • Arlene Pileggi (Skinner's Assistant)
  • Nelson Mashita (Dr. Lim)
  • David Doty (Minister)
  • Mary Wickliffe (Nurse)
  • Larry Rippenkroeger (Deck Hand)

White snow covers the cemetery ground in Raleigh, NC as mourners gather for the funeral of Fox Mulder. Scully stares straight ahead, seemingly lost in her thoughts, surrounded by Skinner, Doggett, Kersh and the Lone Gunmen. She is unaware of the many stolen glances her way.

Three months later, Doggett is called into Kersh's office where Skinner is waiting. Doggett has been recommended for advancement and transfer off the X-files, but Doggett asks for more time to consider such a move. He goes back down to the X-files office where a noticeably pregnant Scully is poring over case files. She tells him to accept the transfer, noting that if he doesn't get out now he may never get out at all. Although he has found Mulder, Doggett feels he still has more questions about the case and is reluctant to leave. Meanwhile, a fishing boat in Wilmington, NC catches sight of a body in the water. The body has scarring that is reminiscent of the alien tests. When a coroner goes to examine the body, he is astonished to see the dead man's lips move. Skinner awakes Doggett to tell him that the body found in the water is Billy Miles, who was presumed dead for months and is now alive. Doggett advises Skinner not to relay this information to Scully. They go to the graveyard in Raleigh to unearth Mulder's body.

Scully runs into the US Naval Hospital in Bethesda, MD distraught and full of wide-eyed emotion, demanding to see Mulder. "Tell me it's true," she pleads with Skinner. Although he has thin life signs and is clinically alive, Mulder's body is in a full state of decomposition. Scully is teary as she approaches Mulder, and she rests her head on his chest as it rises and falls with each breath. She then goes into the hospital room of Billy Miles, whose body begins to convulse. The heart monitor briefly shows two heartbeats, and Scully notifies the nurse that the equipment may be malfunctioning.

Kersh summons Doggett to his office and orders him to drop the Mulder investigation. Doggett is wary of his superior's intentions. Walking down the FBI hallway, Skinner almost loses consciousness when the familiar black veins suddenly appear on his face and neck. He opens the elevator doors to find Krycek with the handheld device that controls the nanotechnology. "What do you want from me?" Skinner asks. Krycek says that he has the vaccine developed by Bill Mulder that will save Mulder's life. "You found him and you don't even know what you've got," Krycek says elusively before leaving Skinner empty-handed. Meanwhile, Billy Miles wakes up in his hospital bed. He pulls out the life support tubing and, still bloated, walks into the shower. As the water covers him, his hardened skin peels off leaving a perfectly fine human body underneath. Down the hall, Scully sits with Mulder while Doggett conveys his concern about reopening this case. She wants to know the truth about what caused this to Mulder. Suddenly, a nurse interrupts them. A healthy Billy Miles is walking naked in the corridor, looking like a recently hatched chick.

Doggett goes to see Absalom. "You ask for my help but you refuse to believe in me," the alien healer says to the skeptical agent. Back at the hospital, Skinner looks in on Mulder but finds Krycek lurking in the corner. When Skinner asks for the vaccine, Krycek tells him he only has to make sure that Scully doesn't come to term. Skinner refuses to sacrifice Scully's baby, but considers the deal. Doggett passes Krycek in the hospital hallway, but doesn't know who the man is. He stops to talk to Scully, who believes that Mulder was infected with a virus that transforms the body into an alien. Doggett notes that Absalom had said the same thing. They now believe that Billy Miles is somehow alien, and she asks Skinner to do whatever it takes to retrieve a vaccine. When Doggett returns to Mulder's room, the door is locked. He finds Skinner has pulled out all the life support tubes, intending to kill Mulder. An enraged Doggett attacks Skinner, who admits that he couldn't trust Krycek's claims of a virus if it meant jeopardizing Scully. With gun drawn, Doggett takes off after Krycek in the parking garage. He latches on to Krycek's moving car, grabbing for Krycek at the wheel, but lets go before the car narrowly escapes. Krycek puts the car in reverse and comes back. He holds up a vial and asks Doggett if he is looking for the vaccine to save Mulder. Doggett takes one step forward and Krycek drops the vial, splattering the brown-colored liquid on the ground.

Doggett goes back upstairs and finds that Mulder was taken into the operating room. Dressed in scrubs and watching the procedure, Scully comes out to tell Doggett that they had been incubating the virus by keeping Mulder on life support. Skinner actually saved him when he pulled off the machines. She has faith that a course of anti-virals will work. Doggett is once again called to Kersh's office where he gets sent back to work on the X-files.

In the recovery room, Scully takes Mulder's hand and he flinches. His eyes flutter open. "Who are you?" he jokes. Scully laughs for the first time in a while and leans across his body, holding him. "Anybody miss me?" he says. Doggett sees this reunion through the window, and Scully looks up at him, not knowing what to say. Doggett relieves her of the trouble and walks away, alone.

Again, Arlene Pileggi reprises her role as her real life husband Mitch's character's assistant.

    8.16 "Three Words"

• Episode Number: 177
• Original Air Date: April 08, 2001
• Written by: Chris Carter & Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Tony Wharmby
• Guest Cast:
  • Adam Baldwin (Knowle Rohrer)
  • James Pickens, Jr. (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • Tom Braidwood (Frohike)
  • Dean Haglund (Langly)
  • Bruce Harwood (Byers)
  • Judson Scott (Absalom)
  • Nelson Mashita (Dr. Lim)
  • Gary Bristow (Howard Salt)
  • Joe Basile (Lead Guard)
  • Ric Sarabia (Prison Trustee)
  • Dwight Hicks (Prison Armed Guard)
  • J.C. Murad (Intercom Guard)

Federal census worker Howard Salt hops over the fence at the White House, and a squadron of Secret Service agents ambushes him. "The aliens are taking over the United States!" he exclaims. Suddenly a gunshot goes off, and the agents realize Salt has accidentally shot himself. Before succumbing to death, he hands one agent a CD-ROM with the words "Fight the Future" written on it.

In his hospital room, Mulder puts his hand on his face and chest scars, seeing flashbacks of the alien torture he endured. Scully interrupts these visions when she tells him that he is completely healthy and miraculously healed of whatever brain disorder he may have suffered. She takes him back to his apartment, which is still intact. "I don't know if you'll ever understand what it was like," a visibly moved Scully acknowledges. Mulder, however, is still unsettled, not knowing how he fits in his newly restored life.

Skinner and Doggett are summoned to Kersh's office to be briefed about Mulder's reinstatement to the X-files. Because of Doggett's success rate of arrests, Kersh is prepared to deny Mulder's application. He orders the two to tell Mulder that he is off the X-files. Doggett resists and Kersh threatens to shut down the X-files altogether. Skinner and Scully come to Mulder's apartment to bring him the bad news. Mulder first learns of Agent Doggett's assignment to the X-files and realizes that they have all become pawns in some larger conspiracy. He gets up to get dressed, telling Scully and Skinner, "For the first time, I feel like getting back to work."

At a Federal Correction Facility in West Virginia, a trusty brings Absalom a book entitled "The Coming Apocalypse." Inside is a newspaper clipping about Howard Salt being killed when he jumped the White House gate. Later, as the prisoners work on a roadside gang, Absalom breaks away and escapes into the woods. That night, Doggett returns home to find Absalom waiting for him. Absalom checks the back of the agent's neck for traces of reptilian-looking alien vertebrae. "You're going to spread the word," he tells Doggett before kidnapping him. From the FBI, Scully tries unsuccessfully to reach Doggett while Skinner briefs his task force on the hunt for Absalom. Skinner tells the agents that the man's claims of alien invasion are to be taken seriously. He shows them a photo of the words "Fight the Future" scrawled on Absalom's cell wall. Scully and Skinner find Mulder in the X-files office. He has picked out Howard Salt's face in an Absalom cult photo and informs them that Salt was a multiple abductee. Mulder is convinced that the man was killed for what he knew. Mulder and Scully sneak into the FBI Evidence Room to discover Howard Salt's laptop computer has its entire memory filled with an encrypted program. Mulder removes the hard drive.

With a gun taped to the small of his back, Doggett enters the Federal Statistics Center. Absalom's hand is on the trigger. When passing the security guard, Doggett notices the x-ray scanner and warns Absalom that they will be stopped. Absalom pushes Doggett on, saying that he is looking for proof that aliens are "already here, among us." Security guards quickly surround them, and Doggett is shocked when they shoot Absalom, nearly missing Doggett's head. Later, when Doggett briefs Skinner on the previous events, Mulder bursts into the office. Doggett is about to introduce himself when Mulder attacks him. He blames Doggett for getting Absalom killed, suspecting that he is part of the conspiracy to hide the truth.

At Scully's apartment, the Lone Gunmen tap into Salt's hard drive and unearth file directories from the Statistics Center. Fifteen minutes after Salt's death, computer firewalls had gone up around the facility. Mulder is convinced that he is onto something in those files. However, even if they were to uncover a password, the firewalls would block them from opening the files. The pass code can only be used in the secured facility itself. Much to the consternation of Mulder, the Gunmen agree with Scully that they have hit a dead end. Meanwhile, Doggett secretly meets with his informant Knowle Rohrer (last seen in Season 8 ep08) to ask why Absalom was shot in cold blood. Doggett suspects that he was merely used to get the man killed. Rohrer tells him that there are three words he should know. Doggett meets Scully outside Mulder's apartment, asking her to give Mulder information he has recently learned. Salt was carrying a diskette that he wanted to give to the President. The password on it contains three words: Fight the Future. Scully goes back into Mulder's apartment but is hesitant to tell him what Doggett told her. She fears that he will get in over his head. Skinner rushes to Doggett's house that night with urgent news about Mulder having some kind of password to access names tracked by the government. When Doggett admits to giving Scully the password, Skinner begins to question whose side Doggett is on. He is even more concerned because he can't contact either Scully or Mulder. "You're gonna have to trust me on this," Doggett tells the Assistant Director and sets out after them alone.

Doggett finds Scully outside the Statistics Center and orders her to leave. "I may have set you up," he pleads. He runs inside to get Mulder out. The Gunmen, meanwhile, have bypassed the security system to allow Mulder access to the building undetected. They lead him into the databank and Mulder types the words "Fight the Future" in the computer. Doggett bangs on the glass door, but Mulder ignores him. "Your life's in danger!" Doggett yells and blows out the window with his gun. Doubting Doggett's intentions, Mulder says that he believes the government is using the census to protect aliens in hiding. Armed military troops storm the building, and Mulder accuses Doggett of setting him up. Doggett tries to convince him that really they have both been set up and are in danger. The Gunmen direct Mulder and Doggett toward an air duct in the ceiling, and they escape.

Doggett again covertly meets with Rohrer and accuses the informant of manipulating him. "You need me worse than you know," Rohrer says emphatically. He tells Doggett that the truth lies in the X-files. An angry Doggett walks away. When Rohrer leans over to the water fountain, enlarged alien vertebrae pop up under the skin on his neck.

The title of this episode refers to the three words "Fight the Future".

    8.17 "Empedocles"

• Episode Number: 178
• Original Air Date: April 15, 2001
• Written by: Greg Walker
• Directed by: Barry K. Thomas
• Guest Cast:
  • Jay Underwood (Jeb Dukes)
  • Wendy Gazelle (Katha Dukes)
  • Denise Crosby (Dr. Speake)
  • Ron Canada (Detective Potter)
  • Bruce Wright (Gary Garber)
  • Dayna Beilenson (Roberta Toews)
  • Cheryl Francis Harrington (E.R. Nurse)
  • Amanda and Caitlin Fein (Mia Dukes)
  • Jennifer Hammon (ICU Nurse)
  • Devlin Elliot (Pizza Delivery Man)
  • Jake Fritz (Luke Doggett)
  • Veronica Brown (Payphone Woman)
  • Louise Melilli (Distraught Woman)

Mild-mannered Jeb Dukes gets fired from his job in New Orleans, while his boss, Gary Garber, apologizes profusely. Jeb calmly strolls out of the office and out on to the street where, coincidentally, he witnesses a police chase that ends in a fatal auto accident. Jeb stays back, but is approached by a man awash in flames from the burning wreckage. The man seemingly walks into Jeb's body and then disappears. Suddenly, Jeb's eyes turn flaming red. That night, Jeb enters his office building and goes right up to his boss. He lifts a gun and fires at Garber.

Detective Franklin Potter is examining the crime scene when Agent Monica Reyes arrives. He shows her some artwork from Jeb Dukes' desk, but Reyes tells him that it is merely the insert from a popular rock CD. She dismisses the case as being satanic-based. Yet when she sees the victim's body, it appears to be charred from a fire. A second glance proves that it was only in her imagination. She is still unsettled by what she saw. Meanwhile, Mulder visits Scully and brings her a present. Before opening it, she doubles over in pain and Mulder rushes her to the hospital. Reyes calls Mulder on his cell phone, saying it is important she see him.

Jeb Dukes sits alone in a motel room, staring in fear at his gun. He raises it to his own head, but it gets hot and burns his hand. His face suddenly crackles. He rips at his skin, revealing flames underneath.

Mulder meets Reyes in an FBI file room. Showing him the file, Reyes asks if he is familiar with Doggett's son's case, which was the most emotional case she has ever worked on. When they found the boy, she had a vision of the body as ashes. Doggett also admitted to seeing the ashen body, but convinced himself that it meant nothing. Reyes once again saw the vision on a new case and senses that there is a reason for it happening a second time. At the hospital, Doggett checks in on a sleeping Scully. He envisions himself in a crime scene in a field, but a nurse enters the hospital room and shakes him out of it. Later, Mulder is in the FBI hallway when Doggett attacks him. "Stay out of my life!" he yells. Mulder tries to cool him down, saying that he was asked to investigate. Reyes approaches the men and explains about the recent case where she had a recurring vision similar to what they both saw in Luke Doggett's case. A suspect in Luke's case was killed in a car accident in New Orleans right outside of where the Jeb Dukes shooting took place. Doggett again warns her to leave it alone.

Reyes goes to the home of Jeb's sister, Katha Dukes, to plead for her help. Jeb calls Katha from South Carolina, claiming that someone else killed those people. A woman knocks on his phone booth door because she needs help with her flat tire. The next morning, Jeb wanders in a daze to a car pulled over with tire trouble. He is unaware of any events that may have taken place. He sees flames in the reflection of the car window, gets in and throws out the woman's purse. When he pulls off, the tire iron falls to the side of the road.

Scully awakes and sees Doggett in her hospital room. He asks her what changed her mind about not believing any of the paranormal on the X-files. She admits to being afraid to believe. Suddenly Doggett sees a vision of Reyes in a field at the familiar crime scene. She is surrounded by sheriffs and looking at a body on the ground. Meanwhile, Reyes comes to Mulder in the X-files office. He has found no connection to other cases with the same kind of visions. Reyes tells him he is wrong because she believes there are patterns.

Doggett arrives at a crime scene in Spartanburg, SC where Mulder is waiting for him. Reyes' case has another murder victim. Doggett's reoccurring hallucination turns into reality when he sees her standing over a body, surrounded by sheriffs. He looks at the woman lying on the ground and tells Reyes that he does not see the ashen remains. Reyes is insistent that there are connections and that it may be a thread of evil. Mulder asks her to leave Doggett alone if the man really doesn't see anything.

Later, Mulder stops by the hospital to see Scully. She had a partial abruption in the uterus wall but she will be fine. He places his hand on her belly and they smile. Scully tells him that she likes Agent Reyes. Mulder is surprised. "You're nothing at all alike." "Neither are you and I," Scully responds. He says that he can't help Doggett if he doesn't want to be helped. She is convinced that Doggett is worth the effort.

Jeb Dukes is at his sister's house. Although he claims he hasn't committed any murders, Katha sees blood on his face and doesn't believe him. Jeb asks her for help, but Katha's fears deepen over the safety of her daughter. Doggett, meanwhile, submits to investigating the Jeb Dukes case when Monica enters the office. She wants him to be honest with himself about what he saw at the Spartanburg crime scene, but he says that feelings don't solve crimes. "What are you scared of?" she asks. Reyes assures Doggett that he did everything he could to save his son. She receives a call from Katha who says that Jeb is at her house. Doggett wants to know what link Jeb may have to his son, and the agents race off to the Dukes home. When they arrive, Katha tells her brother that Reyes only wants to talk to him, but Jeb is scared and takes Katha's daughter as hostage. Doggett holds him at the stairs, but puts down his gun when Jeb threatens to kill the little girl. Reyes shoots Jeb from the other side and Doggett calls for help.

Jeb is transported to Washington Memorial Hospital and the agents follow. Reyes surmises that perhaps saving the little girl was the connection to Doggett's son. She tells Doggett that there is nothing more for him to do, and he goes down to Scully's room. Watching her sleep, he again sees the vision in the field where Reyes is surrounded by the sheriffs. The men back away to reveal that Luke Doggett is the unseen body lying at their feet. The body turns to ash. Mulder interrupts him and asks if he thought there really was a connection to his son's death. Mulder wonders whether evil is like a random disease: while most people have immunity, others may catch it at a weak moment. In the ICU, Katha witnesses her brother's body seizing. The doctors try to revive him but his heart stops, and Jeb Dukes is declared dead. Katha stands crying over him, accusing Reyes of killing him. An invisible spirit floats from Jeb to Katha, causing her body to convulse and her eyes turn to flame red. She strikes Reyes and grabs the agent's gun. Doggett arrives in time to capture Katha. "It's over," he tells Reyes. "It's never over," she says.

Mulder comes once again to Scully's house and reminds her to open his gift. It is an heirloom doll from his family. She thanks him for the other gift he gave her -- the courage to believe. "I hope it's a gift I can pass on," she says, tearfully. Back at the hospital, Katha Dukes is alive and strapped to her bed. Doggett stares intensely at the woman, wanting to believe that this will prevent the evil from spreading again.

    8.18 "Vienen"

• Episode Number: 179
• Original Air Date: April 22, 2001
• Written by: Steven Maeda
• Directed by: Rod Hardy
• Guest Cast:
  • Miguel Sandoval (Martin Ortega)
  • Casey Biggs (Saksa)
  • Gregory Norman Cruz (Diego Garza)
  • James Pickens, Jr. (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • M.C. Gainey (Bo Taylor)
  • Lee Reherman (Yuri)
  • Luis Villalta (Simon De La Cruz)
  • Kevin C. Loomis (Chef)
  • Steve Wilcox (Ed Dell)
  • Rich Marotta (Hockey Announcer)

As the Galpex Petroleum Orpheus oilrig sits in the Gulf of Mexico, its crew eats dinner in front of the television. They don't notice Mexican worker Simon De La Cruz steal a knife from the kitchen. He slips out to the ship's communication shack and stabs the engineer. When the television fizzles out in the mess hall, Chief Bo Taylor goes to the Comm Shack to find De La Cruz smashing all the radio equipment. He notices the fallen engineer's eyes have welled with the alien black oil. Now you've gone and done it, Bo says. His face lights up in a blinding white glow that overtakes his entire body. Simon screams in Spanish.

Back at the FBI, Doggett finds Mulder rummaging through the X-file cabinets. Although he is no longer assigned to the office, Mulder believes that a recent death of an oilrig worker exposed to radiation is extraterrestrial-related. Scully calls Doggett to remind him that she is waiting with Kersh and an executive from Galpex Petroleum, who had come when contacted by Mulder. Kersh sends Doggett to the rig. When he arrives, Doggett is angry to see Mulder is already there. In Washington, Scully's autopsy on Simon shows that he was infected with the black oil, but that his body had some sort of immunity to it. She tells Skinner that they need to evacuate the ship for Doggett's safety, fearful that others may be infected. Scully shows the body to the Galpex executive and orders him to shut down the rig. She is alarmed when he chooses to bring the ship and its crew back to shore. Meanwhile, another sailor named Yuri notices that the radio on the boat is intercepting some strange frequency. Bo attacks Yuri and leaks the black oil on him.

Scully tries to radio Doggett on the oilrig and is surprised when Mulder answers. Doggett orders quarantine from a possible contagion, and Mulder finds that there is one man missing from the ship's manifest. While Mulder and Doggett go out looking for this man, Diego Garza, Doggett attempts to wrestle control of the investigation, and demands to know what the crew might possibly be protecting. Mulder admits to having seen the alien black oil substance. He also believes that the Galpex executive was lying to the FBI because the ship's crew has already drilled the oil that the ship was supposedly looking for. Suddenly, an alarm goes off and the agents see a fire in the Comm Shack. Mulder comes upon the remnants of a molotov cocktail in the Comm Shack, and he is convinced that the fire was set purposefully. Doggett runs to seek another extinguisher and gets pelted over the head by the hiding Diego Garza. Garza slices Doggett's arm and is relieved that the agent's blood is indeed red. He tells Doggett in Spanish that the flying ships are coming.

Despite Scully's pleas, Kersh orders the quarantine to be lifted as soon as radio transmission is renewed. In her autopsy, Scully realizes that De La Cruz's Mexican Indian background may have caused his immunity to the alien virus. The crew probably irradiated him because he knew something, and they could not control him.

Doggett convinces Garza that he can help him get off the ship without the crew finding out. Looking for Garza himself is Bo, who attacks Doggett. The chief is about to infect Doggett with the black oil when Mulder saves him. The agents lock themselves in the Comm Shack and try to fix the radio as the black oil infected crew bangs on the door. Mulder holds them off, and Doggett somehow fixes the radio. Scully is waiting on the other end of the transmission to tell them that choppers are on the way. Doggett says that he, Mulder and Garza are the only ones not infected, so the helicopter should not land on the ship. Suddenly, Mulder smashes the radio. Doggett isn't sure if he too is infected, but Mulder explains that the radio is actually making contact with the mother ship. Mysteriously, the crew stops banging on the door. Doggett goes back to find Garza after promising the man he would help him. Garza is dead, charred from radiation. The crew begins to demolish the rig, and Mulder and Doggett run to escape the fires. The agents get to the side of the rig and see the helicopter in the distance. The pilot is mouthing something to them, and they think they're being told to jump. As the rig explodes, Mulder and Doggett leap off into the water.

In Washington, Mulder is in the X-files office when Doggett enters. Galpex still intends to keep drilling, and Doggett is prepared to take responsibility for the mishandled case. Yet Mulder says that he has been fired from the FBI, taking the fall for both Doggett and the X-files. You've seen it, Mulder says, urging Doggett to prevent any more drilling. Whereas on the oilrig, Doggett wanted Mulder off the case, now he tries to convince him to stay. Mulder leaves the office, telling Doggett You're in charge here now.

"Vienen" is Spanish for 'They Come'

    8.19 "Alone"

• Episode Number: 180
• Original Air Date: May 06, 2001
• Written by: Frank Spotnitz
• Directed by: Frank Spotnitz
• Guest Cast:
  • Jolie Jenkins (Agent Leyla Harrison)
  • Jay Caputo (Salamander Man)
  • Tony Ketcham (Gary Sacks)
  • Zach Grenier (Herman Stites)
  • James Otis (Arlen Sacks)
  • Lisa Kaseman (Pathology Assistant)

In a small house in Ellicot, NY, Gary Sacks tends to his ailing father, Arlen. Gary goes into the kitchen, and Arlen panics when he sees something on the ceiling. Gary hears the heart monitor flatline in the other room and sees that his father has disappeared from his wheelchair. Gary looks for him and hears a hissing sound. Suddenly, a huge reptilian face lunges at him, and he is sprayed with venom.

At the FBI, Scully cleans out her desk in preparation for maternity leave. She finds memorabilia from past cases, and gives Doggett an Apollo 11 key chain that was given to her by Mulder (in 4:17 Tempus Fugit). The medallion symbolizes teamwork and partnership, and she thanks Doggett for his help over the past year. She exits the office. Moments later, Agent Leyla Harrison enters, having been assigned to partner with Doggett on the X-files during Scully's leave. Harrison, a fan of Mulder and Scully's work, is excited about being on an actual X-file and accompanies Doggett in examining the crime scene at the Sacks' home. There are some remnants of slime in the home and near where Arlen's body was found. Based on her study of Mulder and Scully's past cases, Harrison immediately jumps to otherworldly conclusions about the nature of the slime. Doggett shoots down her theories.

Doggett wanders alone toward a deserted mansion near the crime scene, and after entering, finds a book on the Sixth Extinction on a desk. He hears a noise and pulls out his gun, only to find Agent Harrison. He tells her that it is here and orders her to wait outside. Gunshots ring outside, and he looks for Agent Harrison, but she has disappeared. He goes into the nearby woods and accidentally falls through a trap door on the ground. He finds himself in some sort of underground wine cellar.

Mulder assists Scully in going to her Lamaze class. She admits to feeling like she has deserted her work. Mulder assures her that Doggett can take care of himself. Skinner, meanwhile, leads a pack of agents to search for Doggett. Scully is worried, and expresses a desire to go back to work to help the search. She performs an autopsy on Arlen Sacks' body and discovers that the slime on his body is actually venom that has been excreted by a reptile. Mulder tries to convince her to stop working as he steps in to conduct his own investigation.

In the underground lair, Doggett is wondering what to make of an amber-colored shell of a dog when he sees something quickly move past him. A giant, snake-like creature attacks him and sprays venom in his eyes. With his sight impaired, Doggett shoots blindly at the creature, and it manages to get away. Harrison hears his gunshots and finds Doggett. Her eyes are also affected, but she brings him to the sickly body of Gary Sacks. Mulder arrives at the crime scene where Skinner is redirecting the search farther away. Mulder, no longer an FBI agent, takes off into the woods on his own and comes upon the mansion. He sees something in the brush and picks it up, but is startled by Herman Stites who claims to own the property.

Mulder asks him if he has seen a reptile and the man bristles at any accusations. Mulder walks away and misses Doggett, who has climbed up to a grating and is calling out to Stites from below. I need a hand, he begs Stites, who ignores the plea. Stites steps on Doggett's outstretched hand, and the agent falls back down in the cellar. Doggett and Harrison hear Stites seal the trap door closed. They then realize that Gary Sacks' body is gone.

Scully calls Mulder to tell him that Skinner is angry that he is tampering with a federal investigation. Mulder believes that it may be a man and not a reptile that they are looking for. He found the Apollo medallion and believes that Doggett is probably still nearby and that Stites is somehow involved. Doggett and Harrison blindly walk through the tunnel in the cellar. She fears that she is afflicted with the same thing as Sacks, because she has become completely blind. The creature appears once again and Doggett wildly shoots at it, but it gets away. Harrison finds Sacks' body. It has deteriorated even more.

Mulder sits in his car near the mansion, waiting. Scully discovers that the venom hardens the body's skin to form a shell. Then, its organs liquefy. She tells Mulder that Stites had been working on creating a new species of reptile. Mulder takes off after something moving in the woods. He watches as a human-sized reptile climbs up the house and into the window of the mansion. As Mulder bangs on the front door, he does not see the creature morph into Stites. Mulder confronts Stites, and Stites brings him into the underground wine cellar. There, Mulder sees Doggett and Harrison, who senses that Stites is really the creature. Suddenly, Stites disappears and the creature crawls along the ceiling. Without an issued gun, Mulder orders a blinded Doggett to shoot at the monster, but Doggett can't see what he's shooting at. Mulder demands that Doggett aim for the sound of his own voice. Although Doggett is hesitant about firing towards Mulder, he shoots and hits the creature. It transforms into Herman Stites, who lies there dead.

At the hospital, a healed Doggett checks in on Harrison. She will not return to the X-files. Mulder hands Doggett the Apollo medallion, but he asks that they give it to Agent Harrison. Mulder and Scully visit with Harrison, who asks them about a past investigation. As they reminisce with the agent, Doggett walks away down the long hallway, heading back to work -- alone.

Agent Leyla Harrison was named for X-Files fan Leyla Harrison, who lost her battle with skin cancer in February 2001.

    8.20 "Essence (a.k.a Part 1)"

• Episode Number: 181
• Original Air Date: May 13, 2001
• Written by: Chris Carter
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Nicholas Lea (Alex Krycek)
  • Frances Fisher (Lizzy Gill)
  • Jay Acovone (Duffy Haskell)
  • Kirk B.R. Woller (Agent Gene Crane)
  • Sheila Larken (Mrs. Scully)
  • Zachary Ansley (Billy Miles)
  • Steven Anderson (Dr. Parenti)
  • David Purdham (Dr. Lev)
  • Denise Crosby (Dr. Speake)
  • Arlene Pileggi (1st Woman Party-Goer)
  • Karon Kearney (2nd Woman Party-Goer)

Mrs. Scully sets up decorations in Scully's apartment in preparation for a baby shower. She pesters her secretive daughter about whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Yet Mrs. Scully has a surprise of her own -- she has hired Lizzy Gill, a baby nurse, to tend to the reluctant Scully. During the party, Lizzy goes into the bathroom undetected. She opens one of Scully's prescription bottles and dumps its contents down the toilet. Then she removes a packet of pills from her pocket and pours them into the bottle.

Dr. Lev (last seen in 8:13 Permanum) is working late at night in the Zeus Genetics lab, clutching an alien baby when Billy Miles (last seen in 8:15 Deadalive) enters. Your work here is done, Billy says. He beheads the doctor with his hand and sets fire to the body. The next day, Doggett is home when Mulder pays him a surprise visit. He shows Doggett a news report on television of a fire at Zeus Genetics. Mulder believes that somebody is covering up whatever was going on in that lab, and Doggett sends Agent Crane to sift through the ashes at the crime scene. The only person not accounted for is Dr. Lev, a partner in Zeus with Dr. Parenti, Scully's former obstetrician. Mulder and Doggett break into Parenti's office and are surprised to see the doctor there. When Doggett finds racks of specimen jars with abnormal fetuses, Mulder accuses the doctor of experimenting with alien embryos.

Lizzy Gill leaves Scully's apartment and is picked up by Duffy Haskell, who was last seen in 8X08 as part of the conspiracy surrounding implanting alien fetuses into abducted women. I think she trusts me, Lizzy tells him. In his office, Dr. Parenti packs up the specimen jars when he hears someone come in. It is Billy Miles. Parenti tells him that the office is closed. Yes, it is, Billy says calmly. Mulder and Doggett sneak into Parenti's office in the middle of the night, suspecting foul play when the doctor does not answer their calls. Amid the fetuses, Doggett finds the head of Dr. Parenti in a specimen jar. Suddenly, Billy Miles surprises Mulder and throws him through a glass window. Doggett, seeing the alien vertebrae on Billy, shoots at him but Billy escapes. Later, Scully tends to Mulder's injured head at her apartment. He tries to explain that Billy has transformed into an alien, but that he himself was somehow prevented from this through Scully's procedure in the hospital. Yet Billy is no ordinary alien, because Doggett saw red blood when he shot at him. Mulder determines that Billy is now a hybrid, and fears for the safety of Scully's baby. Lizzy, overhearing their conversation, phones Duffy. Duffy, however, is face-to-face with Billy Miles, and the alien slices off Duffy's head with one clean chop of his hand.

Duffy's body is found in an illegal medical facility used for cloning. There, Skinner locates prenatal records on Scully, as monitored by Dr. Lev and Dr. Parenti. Skinner takes Mulder aside and asks about the nature of Scully's conception, but Mulder, surprisingly, doesn't have any answers. Mulder calls Scully and says it is important that he immediately see her regarding interference with her pregnancy. Yet she hears a noise in her apartment and catches Lizzy tampering with her prescription bottle. Who are you? she demands. Later, after a checkup, the doctor assures Scully that the pills she had been taking were only harmless vitamin supplements. Doggett interrogates Lizzy, who recounts how she worked as a research scientist on human cloning. Her research team had been successful at birthing an alien egg in a human mother. Mulder is outraged. What did you do to Scully? he screams. Lizzy tells them that there is nothing wrong with Scully's child. In fact, it is perfectly human, and she had tried to protect it. Agent Crane informs Doggett that Billy Miles phoned in and offered to give himself up.

A SWAT team storms Dr. Parenti's office, but Billy is not there. Sensing danger, Mulder orders Scully to quickly pack and leave her apartment. Doggett calls with news of Billy's disappearance, and mysteriously, the lights go off in Scully's apartment. Billy misses Mulder and Scully as they escape outside. Their car, however, is blocked in, and the approaching Billy Miles traps them like sitting ducks.

Suddenly, another car screeches from out of nowhere and plows over Billy. Mulder and Scully watch in shock as its driver -- Krycek -- orders them to get in. Billy Miles gets up, unhurt, and watches the car speed off. At the FBI, Krycek informs the assembled agents that the aliens are afraid of Scully's child because it is greater than they are. Doggett is suspicious of Krycek and calls Agent Monica Reyes, who has flown into Washington, for help. Skinner and Mulder take Scully into the elevator, but as they approach the garage, Doggett calls to say that Billy Miles is down there. They put Scully back in the elevator, and Billy goes up the stairs. Krycek takes Scully while Skinner and Mulder proceed in the elevator, with Billy in pursuit. Doggett puts Scully in a car with Reyes. On the roof, Billy is about to strike Skinner when Mulder comes up from behind to push Billy off the roof. He lands in a garbage truck and its compactor crushes him. As Scully and Reyes speed out of the garage, Agent Crane blocks their path. He watches as the garbage truck rids of Billy, and then waves the women safely by. They do not see that Agent Crane too has the alien vertebrae on his neck.

Arlene Pileggi, Mitch's real-life wife, appears as one of the guests at Scully's baby shower.

    8.21 "Existence (a.k.a Part 2 & Season Finale)"

• Episode Number: 182
• Original Air Date: May 20, 2001
• Written by: Chris Carter
• Directed by: Kim Manners
• Guest Cast:
  • Nicholas Lea (Alex Krycek)
  • Adam Baldwin (Knowle Rohrer)
  • James Pickens, Jr (Deputy Director Kersh)
  • Kirk B.R. Woller (Agent Gene Crane)
  • Tom Braidwood (Frohike)
  • Dean Haglund (Langly)
  • Bruce Harwood (Byers)
  • Zachary Ansley (Billy Miles)
  • Austin Tichenor (Dr. Langenhahn)
  • Tom Martin (Pathologist's Assistant)
  • Dale Dickey (Game Warden)
  • Jerry Shiban (Scully's baby)

A pathologist is called in late at night to examine the gnarled body of Billy Miles (crushed in the garbage truck in 8:20). The doctor pulls from the remains a piece of metallic vertebrae and, thinking it is most likely trash, places it on a nearby lab tray. He leaves the office with plans to continue the autopsy in the morning. The metal magically spins on the tray and reproduces itself, progressively growing larger.

At the FBI, Mulder produces a video grab of a healthy and re-formed Billy Miles walking out of the morgue the previous night. Krycek explains to Skinner and Doggett that Billy is a human replacement -- a new kind of alien created to repopulate the planet. Although Billy may not find the hiding Scully, Krycek warns that others like him will. Agent Crane interrupts to tell Doggett that Knowle Rohrer is in the building to see him. Rohrer fabricates a story to Doggett that his investigation is military in nature and stemmed from a plan to create a super soldier. He explains that Billy is a prototype who is now after Scully because she was abducted by the military and impregnated with such a prototype.

The chip in her neck was used to monitor her. When Rohrer asks where Scully is, Doggett claims ignorance. Meanwhile, Billy Miles enters the FBI hallway, unnoticed by everyone but Krycek. When Krycek bolts out of Skinner's office, Skinner follows him into an elevator to flee Billy. As the doors shut out Billy, his hand penetrates the metal and goes straight into the elevator chamber. Billy swings his arm and cuts into the top of Skinner's head, which knocks out the A.D. While Skinner later recuperates in the hospital with a concussion, Doggett tells Mulder that his informant Rohrer tipped him off that this would happen. Doggett is concerned that his knowledge of Scully's whereabouts may eventually catch up with him.

Scully and Reyes drive through the night into Democrat Hot Springs, Georgia. Although it was once the city where Doggett was born, it is now a deserted ghost town. They set up camp in an abandoned house of worship that has no running water. That evening, Reyes goes outside to have a nerve-settling cigarette, when a light in the sky catches her eye. While too low and bright to be a star, it is unidentifiable. She ignores it and goes back inside. Seeing the newly cleaned building, Scully thanks Reyes for her kindness and tells the agent that she reminds her of her late sister, Melissa. Reyes sees someone lurking outside and draws her gun. A truck driven by a female game warden comes barreling toward her. The agents explain that Scully's life is in danger and that they are in hiding. The warden kindly gives them her first aid kit and a camp stove before leaving. Reyes admits to Scully that her vibrations are inclining that something feels off about the abandoned place.

When she goes outside to get more water, she again sees the light in the distant sky. While she is watching it, Billy Miles appears and throws her against a wall. Before he can attack her, a gunshot blows a hole through his chest. The game warden stands aside, her rifle still smoking. Reyes sees the alien vertebrae on Billy's neck, and she and the warden carry his limp body to show Scully that he's dead. Scully, still worried that he can never be killed, announces that she is going into labor.

Sitting in the FBI garage, Doggett asks Mulder when his quest is going to end. Mulder responds that perhaps it never will. They see Krycek pulling into the garage. His passenger is the ubiquitous Knowle Rohrer. Doggett follows Rohrer into the FBI building, finding him surreptitiously meeting with Agent Crane. Hiding from them, he meets up with Skinner, and they call Mulder with news about Crane. Mulder, still in the garage watching Krycek, says that Krycek, Rohrer and Crane are all in it together, fooling the agents into believing that they are protecting Scully.

Mulder tells Doggett to get out of there and asks him to reveal where Reyes took Scully. Suddenly, the car window smashes and Krycek holds Mulder at gunpoint. Krycek says that he tried to stop the aliens but it is now too late. Although he has protected Mulder's life in the past, Krycek explains that he is forced to kill him now because the conspiracy goes deep into the FBI. Krycek cocks his gun trigger and aims at Mulder, but Skinner shoots him in the arm. Krycek pleads with the A.D. to kill Mulder, insisting that he can save more lives that way. Skinner listens, but then shoots Krycek squarely between the eyes, killing him. Mulder takes off to the airport in pursuit of Scully. Upstairs in the building, Doggett pulls his gun on Rohrer and Crane, and they chase him. Doggett runs into Skinner, and the two break for their car. They run over Crane, but he is still alive, hanging onto the side of the vehicle. Crane smashes through the window, while Rohrer follows in another car. Skinner sideswipes a concrete pole, ridding him of Crane. When Crane gets up, Rohrer's car hits him and swerves out of control. Rohrer crashes into a wall, and his car explodes.

Reyes is preparing for Scully's birth when she notices the alien vertebrae on the game warden's neck. She throws boiling water on the warden, screaming Who are you? Suddenly, a number of cars pull up to the abandoned town and a perfectly healthy Billy Miles gets up off the ground. This baby will be born, the replicant game warden says. Scully screams in pain, watching as a crowd of aliens walk into the building and surround her. This is my baby! Please don't let them take it, she pleads to Reyes. The aliens watch silently as Scully gives birth with Reyes' assistance. Mulder flies overhead in a helicopter and the aliens pull away in their cars. He lands, and runs toward the building, calling out for Scully. Reyes orders him to take Scully to the hospital.

Back at the FBI, Kersh reprimands Doggett and Reyes for the report they have filed. Doggett has personally assigned Reyes to the X-files because the Deputy Director's office is under investigation. Doggett accuses Kersh of meeting with two missing men who were presumed dead -- Crane and Rohrer. Later, Mulder comes to Scully's apartment where the Lone Gunmen are bearing gifts. They learned from Doggett that he never told Mulder exactly where to find Scully. There was a light. I followed it, Mulder says.

The Gunmen depart, and Scully shows Mulder the baby, whom she named William, after Mulder's father. Although the baby is completely human, they comment that he is still a miracle. Mulder believes that the aliens did not take him because they thought he would be otherwise. I think we feared the possibility, he tells Scully. The truth we both know. And as he cradles their son, he leans in and kisses her.

While Mulder holds their son, we see the 3rd on-screen kiss between Mulder & Scully.

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