6x06 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas



Mulder: I almost gave up on you.
Scully: Sorry. Checkout lines were worse than rush hour on the 95. If I heard "silent night" one more time, I'd was going to start taking hostages. What are we doing here?
Mulder: Stakeout.
Scully: On Christmas Eve?
Mulder: It's an important date.
Scully: No kidding.
Mulder: Important to why we're here. Turn off your car and I'll fill you in on the details.
Scully: Mulder, I've got wrapping to do. It's the night before Christmas...
Mulder: Oh.
Scully: Let's hear it. Give me the details.
Mulder: Look, if you've got Christmas stuff to do, I don't wanna...
Scully: You know, Mulder, I drove all the way out here. I might as well know why. Right?
Mulder: I just thought you'd be more... curious.
Scully: Who lives in the house?
Mulder: No one.
Scully: Then who are we staking out?
Mulder: The former occupants.
Scully: They've come back?
Mulder: That's the story.
Scully: I see. The dark, Gothic manor the, uh, omnipresent, low fog hugging the thicket of overgrowth. Wait--is that a hound I hear, baying out on the moors?
Mulder: No, actually that was a left cheek sneak.
Scully: Mulder, tell me you didn't call me out here on Christmas Eve to go ghostbusting with you.
Mulder: Technically speaking, they're called apparitions.
Scully: Mulder, call it what you want. I've got holiday cheer to spread. I've got a family roll call under the tree at 6:00 AM.
Mulder: I'll make it fast. I'll just give you the details.
Scully: Okay.
Mulder: Christmas, 1917. It was a time of dark, dark despair. American soldiers were dying at an ungodly rate in a war-torn Europe, while at home, a deadly strain of the flu virus attacked young and old alike. Tragedy was a visitor on every doorstep while a creeping hopelessness set in with every man, woman and child. It was a time of dark, dark despair.
Scully: You said that.
Mulder: But here, at 1501 Larkspur Lane, for a pair of star-crossed lovers tragedy came not from war or pestilence--not by the boot heel or the bombardier--but by their own innocent hand.
Scully: Go on.
Mulder: His name was Maurice. He was a... a brooding, but heroic young man, beloved of Lyda, a sublime beauty with a light that seemed to follow her wherever she went. They were likened to two angels descended from heaven, whom the gods could not protect from the horrors being visited upon this cold, grey earth.
Scully: And what happened to them?
Mulder: Driven by a tragic fear of separation, they forged a lovers' pact, so that they might spend eternity together and not spend one precious Christmas apart.
Scully: They killed themselves?
Mulder: And their ghosts haunt this house every Christmas Eve. I just gave myself chills.
Scully: It's a good story, Mulder... and very well told, but I don't believe it.
Mulder: You don't believe in ghosts?
Scully: That surprises you?
Mulder: Well... yeah. I thought everybody believed in ghosts.
Scully: Mulder, if it were any other night, I might let you talk me into it, but the halls are decked and I gotta go.
Mulder: My best to the family.
Scully: What are you doing? Mulder, don't you have somewhere to be?
Mulder: I'm just gonna take a look.
Scully: I'm not gonna do it. My new year's resolution. Mulder!
Mulder: Change your mind?
Scully: Did you take my car keys?
Mulder: No.
Scully: Come on, Mulder. Don't kid around.
Mulder: Why would I take your car keys?
Scully: Maybe you, uh... maybe you grabbed them by mistake.
Mulder: Maybe it was a ghost. Cold wind.
Scully: There must be a window open upstairs. You know, the weather report said that there was an 80 percent chance of rain maybe even a... maybe even a white Christmas.

[opening credits]

Mulder: I think the spirits are among us.
Scully: Mulder, will you quit trying to scare me, and help me get these doors open.
Mulder: Sounds like there's somebody walking around upstairs. There. You hear that?
Scully: Mulder, I really have to go.
Mulder: There's nothing to be afraid of.
Scully: I'm not afraid, OK?
Mulder: Ghosts are benevolent entities. Mostly.
Scully: You are not scaring me, Mulder. Look, I really have to get home. Mulder...
Mulder: Shh! What was that?
Scully: These are tricks that the mind plays. They are ingrained cliches from a thousand different horror films. When we hear a sound, we get a chill. We--we see a shadow, and we allow ourselves to imagine something that an otherwise rational person would discount out of hand. The whole... Mulder...? The whole idea of a benevolent entity fits perfectly with what I'm saying. That a spirit would materialize or return, for no other purpose than to show itself, is silly and ridiculous. I mean, what it really shows, is how silly and ridiculous we have become in believing such things. I mean, that... that we can ignore all natural laws about the corporeal body--that--that we witness these spirits clad in their own shabby outfits with the same old haircuts and hairstyles never aging, never... never in search of more comfortable surroundings. It actually ends up saying more about the living than it does about the dead.
Mulder: Mm-hmm.
Scully: I mean, Mulder, it doesn't take an advanced degree in psychology to understand the... the unconscious yearnings that these imaginings satisfy. You know, the--the longing for immortality, the hope that there is something beyond this mortal coil--that--that we might never be long without our loved ones. I mean, these are powerful, powerful desires. I mean, they're the very essence of what make us human. The very essence of Christmas, actually.
Mulder: Tell me you're not afraid.
Scully: All right, I'm afraid. But it's an irrational fear.
Mulder: I got your back.
Scully: Thank you. Mulder, did it occur to you that there aren't ghosts here, but that somebody actually might be living in this house?
Mulder: No one lives here.
Scully: But when you and I were sitting out in the car, there was not a light on, and look at this.
Mulder: Must have been some kind of electrical surge.
Scully: Mulder, did you happen to notice the clock downstairs is keeping perfect time?
Mulder: Is it?
Scully: And how do you explain that? This fire has just gone out.
Mulder: Yeah.
Scully: Don't look so disappointed.
Mulder: Why would anyone wanna live in a cursed house?
Scully: Mulder, it's not enough that it's haunted? It has to be cursed?
Mulder: Every couple that's ever lived here has met a tragic end. Three double murders in the last 80 years. All on Christmas Eve. There's that sound again.
Scully: Mulder? That's not funny!
Mulder: I think there's a hiding space under the floorboards.
Scully: What are you gonna do?
Mulder: Uh...there may be somebody trapped under there. I got to get them out.
Scully: Mulder, don't. Not now.
Mulder: Hey, you have a gun, right? Rationally, you've been in much more dangerous situations. I was half right.
Scully: Oh, my god.
Mulder: Hey, Scully, look at this.
Scully: It's a woman. Mulder, it looks like they were shot to death.
Mulder: Yeah.
Scully: You know what's weird?
Mulder: What?
Scully: Mulder, she's wearing my outfit.
Mulder: How embarrassing.
Scully: Yeah, well, you know what? He's wearing yours.
Mulder: Oh... Scully...
Scully: That's us.
Mulder: Hey, Scully...
Scully: This is the same room.
Mulder: All right. I'm beginning to... get this.
Scully: Yeah. You go through that door and I...
Mulder: I should come out... this door.
Scully: Right. Mulder?
Mulder: Scully! Scully!

[commercial break]

Mulder: Hey, Scully. Scully, can you hear me?
Ed: Hey!
Mulder: Who are you?
Ed: That's a question I should be asking, being this is my house you're standing in. This isn't one of those home invasions, is it?
Mulder: No.
Ed: Good. Would you like me to show you the door?
Mulder: That's very funny.
Ed: I wasn't making a joke.
Mulder: Have you looked at the door?
Ed: Uh-huh, I'm looking at it now.
Mulder: Tell me what you see.
Ed: I see a door with the lock shot off it. You going to pay for that?
Mulder: That's a door with a brick wall behind it.
Ed: Okay, sure.
Mulder: You're playing tricks on me.
Ed: If I am, I'm sorry, but I don't know any tricks.
Mulder: Yeah? That's a trick in itself, isn't it? You've been playing tricks on us since we got here.
Ed: Am I to take it we're not alone?
Mulder: Ah, that's very funny, coming from a ghost.
Ed: Yeah, yeah, oh... the gun fooled me a little at first. You're a ghost hunter, huh? And--and you think I'm a ghost, huh? I've seen a lot of strange folks coming around here, with a lot of strange equipment, but I think you must be the first I've seen come armed.
Mulder: Strange folks?
Ed: Mm-hmm.
Mulder: Like those folks under the floorboa... how did you do that?
Ed: I didn't do anything.
Mulder: There were corpses here--bodies buried under the floorboards.
Ed: Why don't you have a seat, son. You drink? Take drugs?
Mulder: No.
Ed: Get high?
Mulder: No.
Ed: Are you overcome by the impulse to make everyone believe you? I'm in the field of mental health. I specialize in disorders and manias related to pathological behavior, as it pertains to the paranormal.
Mulder: Wow. I--I didn't know such a thing existed.
Ed: My specialty is in what I call soul prospectors--a crossaxial classification I've codified by extensive interaction with visitors like yourself. I've found you all tend to fall into pretty much the same category.
Mulder: And what category is that?
Ed: Narcissistic, overzealous, self-righteous egomaniac.
Mulder: That's a category?
Ed: You kindly think of yourself as single-minded, but you're prone to obsessive compulsiveness, workaholism, antisocialism... Fertile fields for the descent into total wacko breakdown.
Mulder: I don't think that pegs me exactly.
Ed: Oh, really? Waving a gun around my house? Huh? Raving like a lunatic about some imaginary brick wall? You've probably convinced yourself you've seen aliens. You know why you think you see the things you do?
Mulder: Because ... I *have* seen them?
Ed: Cause you're a lonely man. A lonely man chasing paramasturbatory illusions that you believe will give your life meaning and significance, and which your pathetic social maladjustment makes impossible for you to find elsewhere. You probably consider yourself passionate, serious, misunderstood. Am I right?
Mulder: "Paramasturbatory"?
Ed: Most people would rather stick their fingers in a wall socket than spend a minute with you.
Mulder: All right, now just, uh... just back off for a second.
Ed: You spend every Christmas this way, alone?
Mulder: I'm not alone.
Ed: More self-delusion.
Mulder: No, I came here with my partner. She's somewhere in the house.
Ed: Behind a brick wall? How'd you get her to come with you? Steal her car keys? You know why you do it...listen endlessly to her droning rationalizations. Cause you're afraid. Afraid of the loneliness. Am I right?
Mulder: I'd just like to find my partner.
Ed: Good... easy. Piece of cake. Brick wall... or brick wall? Go ahead, change your life.

Scully: Mulder? [screams]
Lily: No, no, please, I will not hurt you.
Scully: I'm a federal agent! I'm armed.
Lily: You're what?
Scully: I'm armed.
Lily: You said...
Scully: I'm armed.
Lily: You're a federal agent?
Scully: Please, I'm a little on edge. Don't come any closer. My name is special agent Dana Scully. And, uh, I can... I can show you my I.D.
Lily: My goodness, I... I thought you were a ghost.
Scully: I can assure you that I'm not. I, uh, I got stuck in this room looking for my partner.
Lily: Oh, the gangly fellow with the, uh, the distinguished profile.
Scully: You've seen him?
Lily: With you, in the foyer. I thought he was a ghost, too.
Scully: Oh... that was you.
Lily: I sleepwalk sometimes. I thought maybe I'd dreamed it. But then here you were again.
Scully: I am sorry... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I, uh... it's just that we found bodies.
Lily: Bodies... Where?
Scully: Right...
Lily: You look like you saw a ghost. There are ghosts in this house, you know.
Scully: Who are you?
Lily: I live here, thank you very much.
Scully: Where's my partner?
Lily: Why are you pointing that gun?
Scully: There were corpses right there, underneath the floor!
Lily: I think maybe the ghosts have been playing tricks on you.
Scully: I don't believe in ghosts.
Lily: Then what are you doing here?
Scully: It's my partner.
Lily: He believes in ghosts?
Scully: Yeah.
Lily: Oh, you poor child. You must have an awful small life. Spending your Christmas Eve with him, running around chasing things you don't even believe in.
Scully: Don't come any closer.
Lily: I can see it in your face. The fear, the conflicted yearnings, a subconscious desire to find fulfillment through another. Intimacy through co-dependency.
Scully: What?
Lily: Maybe you repress the truth about why you're really here pretending it's out of duty or loyalty, unable to admit your dirty little secret. Your only joy in life is proving him wrong.
Scully: You don't know me. And you don't live here. This isn't your house.
Lily: You wouldn't think so, the way I'm being treated.
Scully: Well, then why is all the furniture covered?
Lily: We're having the house painted.
Scully: Where's your Christmas tree?!
Lily: We're Jewish. Boo.
Scully: Hold it right there. Don't make me shoot you. Stay where you are.
Ed: We really attract them, don't we?
Scully: Where's Mulder?
Ed: Mulder? Is that his name?
Scully: Where is he?
Ed: He'll be along.
Scully: Move over there. Both of you, move. Move over there. Move other there.
Ed: This violates our civil rights. I have friends at the ACLU.
Scully: Put your hands up.
Ed: You see what we've resorted to? Gimmicks and cheap tricks. We used to be so good at this.
Lily: We used to have years to drive them mad. Now we get one night.
Ed: This pop psychology approach is crap. All it does is annoy them. When's the last time we actually haunted anyone?
Lily: When was the last time we had a good double murder? Not since the house was condemned.
Ed: This is embarrassing--amateur kid stuff.
Lily: Look, if we let our reputations slip they're going to take us off the tourist literature. Last year no one even showed up.
Ed: Oh, of all days, why did you pick Christmas? Why not Halloween?
Lily: Now, who is filled with hopelessness and futility on Halloween? Christmas comes but once a year.
Ed: You're right. These two do seem pretty miserable. We need to show them just how lonely Christmas can be.
Lily: Now that's the old yuletide spirit.

[commercial break]

Lily: Are you agent mulder?
Mulder: Who are you, now?
Lily: What are you doing, using my chair for a ladder?
Mulder: I'm trying to get out of this room.
Lily: Trying to get out?
Mulder: Excuse me.
Lily: No, no. You can't get out that way. Masher.
Mulder: Frump.
Lily: I don't know who you're calling a frump, but I don't appreciate that--being manhandled, or called names. Certainly not at this hour.
Mulder: You're a ghost.
Lily: More names!
Mulder: What happened to the star-crossed lovers?
Lily: Oh, let me tell you, the romance is the first thing to go.
Mulder: It's you. You're Lyda, and that was Maurice. But you've... aged.
Lily: I hope your partner finds you a lot more charming than I do. Let's see. Where is it? No, no, no, no... there it is. I was young and beautiful once, just like your partner. Whoo! Look at us. Maurice was so handsome. He didn't have a gut. I hope you're not expecting any great advantages to all this.
Mulder: To all what?
Lily: I'm assuming you came here with similar misconceptions.
Mulder: We came here looking for you.
Lily: Oh, yeah? You didn't come here to be together for eternity?
Mulder: No.
Lily: Because you're filled with despair and woeful Christmas melancholy?
Mulder: Why?
Lily: Maybe it was your partner then.
Mulder: What about her?
Lily: You knew this house was haunted.
Mulder: Yeah.
Lily: Maybe you two should have discussed your real feelings before you came out here. I'm speaking from experience.
Mulder: What experience?
Lily: I'm not gonna get into semantics. A murder-suicide is all about trust.
Mulder: I thought you had a lovers' pact.
Lily: Ha--ha. Poetic illusions aside, the outcome, Mulder, is pretty much the same.
Mulder: Oh...!
Lily: I don't show my hole to just anyone.
Mulder: Why are you showing it to me?
Lily: It isn't like you're going to be eating any Christmas ham, is it?
Mulder: Oh, you're trying tell me that scully's gonna shoot me. Scully is not going to shoot me.
Lily: Suit yourself, but if you shoot first for her, the rest is an act of faith.
Mulder: I wouldn't shoot her.
Lily: Maybe she shoots herself.
Mulder: I wouldn't let her.
Lily: The bodies under the floor--maybe that was just some kind of Jungian symbolism. Or maybe... there's a secret lovers' pact.
Mulder: We're not lovers.
Lily: And this isn't a pure science. But you're both so attractive and there'll be a lot of time to work that out. Go ahead, take it. Take it. Think of it as the last Christmas you'll ever spend alone.

Ed: I locked it. For your protection.
Scully: Stay away from me. I want you to get me out of here. I am quite capable of pulling this trigger.
Ed: Glad to hear it. You may well have to defend yourself against that crazy partner of yours.
Scully: What have you done with him?!
Ed: Kept him safe from his own mad devices--at least for now. Do you have any idea why he brought you here, to this house?
Scully: Look, all I know is this is just some bad dream. This is all in my head.
Ed: Yet here you are, waving a gun at me, like your partner.
Mulder: Hey, Scully!
Ed: Do you realize how seriously disturbed that man is? How dark and lonely? What he's capable of?
Mulder: Scully?!
Scully: Mulder!
Ed: Want your car keys?
Scully: Where did you get those?
Ed: He's got nowhere to go this Christmas. No one to go with. Did he happen to mention a story about a lovers' pact?
Scully: Where did you get those keys?
Ed: The man is acting out an unconscious yearning. The deep-seated terror of being alone.
Mulder: Scully... Scully, are you there?!
Scully: I'm here, Mulder!
Mulder: Open the door, Scully!
Scully: Open the door.
Ed: I've seen it happen too many times in this house.
Scully: I don't believe you. Just open the door. Open the door!
Mulder: Where's Scully?
Scully: Mulder.

["Mulder" shoots at Scully]

[commercial break]

Scully: Mulder, what are you doing? Mulder!
Mulder: There's no getting out of here, Scully. There's no way home.
Scully: Mulder, come on... Mulder, don't come any closer. You're scaring me. Put the gun down!
Mulder: What are you gonna do? You're gonna shoot me?!
Scully: I'm not going to shoot you! I don't want to shoot you!
Mulder: It's me or you... you or me. One of us has to do it.
Scully: Mulder, look... we don't have to do this.
Mulder: Oh, yes, we do.
Scully: We can get out of here.
Mulder: Even if we could, what's waiting for us? More loneliness! And then 365 more shopping days till even more loneliness!
Scully: I don't believe what you're saying! Mulder, I don't believe a word of it.

["Mulder" shoots Scully]

Mulder: Merry Christmas, Scully... and a happy new year. Let me go! Let me go!
Scully: Mulder!
Lily: Let me go... let me go...
Mulder: Let me go! Scully! Scully?
Scully: Mulder... is that you?
Mulder: What did you do?
Scully: I didn't believe it, Mulder.
Mulder: You didn't believe what?
Scully: I didn't believe that you'd do it... that I would... Merry Christmas, Mulder.
Mulder: What are you doing?

["Scully" shoots Mulder]

Mulder: Scully? Scully...
Scully: I'm not going to make it.
Mulder: No, you're not... not without me, you're not.
Scully: Are you afraid, Mulder? I am.
Mulder: I am, too.
Mulder: You should have thought of this.
Scully: You should have.
Mulder: You shot me first!
Scully: I didn't shoot you. You shot me.
Mulder: Scully...
Scully: What?
Mulder: Get up.
Scully: I can't.
Mulder: Get up... you're not shot.
Scully: What?
Mulder: Come on. It's a trick. It's all in your head.

Lily: You hear that? It's Christmas.
Ed: One for the books.
Lily: We almost had those two, didn't we?
Ed: Almost had them.
Lily: Two such lonely souls.
Ed: We can't let our failures haunt us.
Lily: You wonder what they were really out here looking for.
Ed: Hard to say. People now... this is just another joyless day of the year.
Lily: Not for us.
Ed: No. We haven't forgotten the meaning of Christmas.

Scully: I, uh... I couldn't sleep. I was, uh... can I come in?
Mulder: Yeah. Aren't you supposed to be opening Christmas gifts with your family?
Scully: Mulder... none of that really happened out there tonight. That was all in our heads, right?
Mulder: It must have been.
Scully: Not that, uh, my only joy in life is proving you wrong.
Mulder: When have you proved me wrong?
Scully: Well... why else would you want me out there with you?
Mulder: You didn't wanna be there? Oh, that's, um... that's self-righteous and... narcissistic of me to say, isn't it?
Scully: No, I mean... maybe I did wanna be out there with you.
Mulder: Now, I know we said that we weren't going to exchange gifts but, uh... I got you a little something.
Scully: Mulder...
Mulder: Merry Christmas.
Scully: Well, I got you a little something, too.