7x04 The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati


Doctor: We've exhausted all medical and scientific evidence. By that I mean nothing we can find--no disease, no hint of disease, only symptoms. The brute fact is, he's experiencing so much activity in his temporal lobe, that it is effectively destroying his brain.

Mrs. Mulder: Enough. There's only so much bluntness a mother can take.

Doctor: I'm sorry. I just...

Mrs. Mulder: All you do is sedate him. You're turning him...into a zombie. I know you can hear me, Fox. Can you give me a sign?

Mulder [thinking]: I can hear you, mom.

Mrs. Mulder: Fox.

Mulder: Mom, I can hear you. I'm here.

Mrs. Mulder: I love you, my darling boy.

Mulder: Mom, where you going? Mom! Mom! Come back, mom! Mom! Mom!! Mom!!!

x
CM: "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes." Ah, but your mummy will still love you. All a mother wants is to shield her boy from pain and danger. Safe in the world as he was once in the womb. But maybe we think a father demands more than mere survival. Maybe we're afraid a father demands worldly adulation, success, heroism. I know you can hear me.

Mulder: I could always hear you. Even when my mind is jammed with a thousand voices, I can hear you like a snake hissing underneath. How the hell did you get in here?

CM: How does anything I do surprise you now? Aren't you expecting me to sprout vampire fangs?

Mulder: You've come to kill me.

CM: It would be better than living like a zombie, wouldn't it? I'm giving you a choice.

Mulder: What choice?

CM: Life or death. Your account is squared--with me, with God, with the IRS, with the FBI. Rise out of your bed and come with me.

Mulder: I'm dying, you idiot. If I could get up, I'd kick your ass.

CM: Don't be so dramatic. Only part of you is dying. The part that played the hero. You've suffered enough for the x-files, for your partner, for the world. You're not Christ. You're not prince Hamlet. You're not even Ralph Nader. You can walk out of this hospital, and the world will forget you. Arise.

Mulder: What...what the hell are you doing to me?

CM: I'm showing you how to take the road not taken. Take my hand.

Mulder: Why should I take your hand?

CM: You can't read my mind?

Mulder: No...I can't. All the voices are gone.

CM: Take my hand, Fox. You have to take the first step. Take my hand. I am your father.


[opening credits]


Kritschgau: Sleep is a luxury, agent Scully. A self-indulgence we have no time for. Nor does agent Mulder.

Scully: How did you get in here?

Kritschgau: Getting in is easy. It's what you do once you're inside that's key.

Scully: What's that supposed to mean?

Kritschgau: You are the only one with access to Mulder. I need you to use it wisely.

Scully: Like you? Almost killing him by shooting him full of phenytoin for a few moments of lucidity?

Kritschgau: It's what agent Mulder wanted. He knows what's wrong. What he wants now is to prove it. It's why he asked for me, not you.

Scully: I don't believe that.

Kritschgau: Two years ago your partner was infected with a virus he claimed was alien. A virus reactivated in him by exposure to a source of energy also alien. Agent Mulder is living proof of what he tried so long to substantiate: The existence of alien life.

Scully: Well, whatever it is, it's killing him. And we have to get it out of him.

Kritschgau: You destroy this, and I'll destroy you.

x
Scully [on the phone]: Scully.

Skinner: Agent Scully, you need to go to the hospital.

Scully: Why? What happened?

Skinner: Mulder's gone. He's disappeared.

x
Scully: There were guards posted here. A man who's gravely ill doesn't just get up and disappear.

Skinner: I know, I know.

Scully: How did this happen?

Skinner: His mother checked him out.

Scully: His mother?

Skinner: That's what they're saying.

Scully: Has anybody spoken with her?

Skinner: I'm leaving that up to you. It's better I not be involved any further in this case.

Scully: Sir, this isn't just a case. This is agent Mulder we're speaking about.

Skinner: And I am trying to help him by staying out of this from now on.

Scully: Sir!

Skinner: I'm in a compromised position. The less I know about agent Mulder's whereabouts--and yours--the better.

x
CM: The child is father to the man. You've been asleep quite a while. I expect it'll be some time before your sleep patterns return to normal. Would you like an explanation?

Mulder: I'm not sure.

CM: While you were lying unconscious in the hospital this afternoon, my doctors worked on you.

Mulder: Why?

CM: At some point I realized that if the syndicate didn't kill you, the FBI would. If the FBI didn't kill you, your own misguided heroism would. There's really no way out for you. There's no way for you to cheat death except by disappearing.

Mulder: A man can't just disappear.

CM: Oh, we've made entire cultures disappear. Like me, now, you'll...you'll become a man without a name. But even while you'll miss your former identity, you'll...you'll learn to love life's simpler pleasures.

Mulder: Well, that'll be kind of tough with these on.

CM: When you no longer want to run, those will come off. How do you feel?

Mulder: I feel better than I did. I gotta tell Scully. I gotta tell her.

CM: If you do have contact with her, you'll put her in danger. You're entering a kind of, uh, witness protection program, for want of a better term. Can I offer you a cigarette?

Mulder: I don't smoke.

CM: Maybe now you do.

x
Scully: Don't move! Who's there?

Albert: I don't mean to frighten you. Albert Hosteen.

Scully: What are you doing here? How did you get here?

Albert: I'm sorry to surprise you.

Scully: Surprise? That you're standing here. The last time I saw you was in New Mexico. They'd taken you from the hospital. Your...your doctors feared the worst.

Albert: I was hoping to see your partner.

Scully: He's missing.

Albert: You must save him.

Scully: He's very ill.

Albert: You must find him before something happens, not only for his sake--for the sake of us all.

x
Mulder: Where are we?

CM: Home. This is your new life.

Mulder: I don't understand.

CM: You can drive away right now. Drive back to Scully, and your x-files, and imminent death...and I wouldn't be surprised if you did, but I think you should take a look around. I mean, why leave something behind until you...until you know what it is you're leaving?

x
FBI Man: Mulder was taken out of the hospital at just before 2:00 A.M. His mother's signature's on the hospital documents. It's her handwriting. She checked him out AMA--against medical advice. It's all legitimate, until you go to surveillance. This is the camera in the hall outside Mulder's room. Here's inside his room. And two other cameras on the ward. We're guesstimating there were at least three others involved. Check this out. Where's Waldo? She's talking to someone.

Scully: Yeah. I know who that is.

x
Mulder: Hello? Anybody home?

DT: They can change your name, but they can't change the things you love.

Mulder: It can't be. You're dead.

DT: No. No, just really relaxed.

Mulder: Scully saw you get shot...on the bridge, six years ago. I was sure you were...dead.

DT: One, uh, well-placed bullet...a punctuation mark in a man's life and you get to start a whole new chapter. I'm fine, son, aside from a little tennis elbow.

Mulder: I felt responsible for your death.

DT: You can let that go. Clearly, I'm alive.

Mulder: I thought that you died for my quest.

DT: Yes, along with Scully's sister, and the man you thought was your father, and Duane Barry, and even Scully's mysterious illness, and on and on and on. You can let go of all that guilt. I'm here to tell you that you're not the hub of the universe, the cause of life and death. We--you and I--we're...merely puppets in a master plan. No more, no less. You've suffered enough. Now you should enjoy your life. Let me show you something. That's my wife and daughters. We live just down the street. I hope...you'll visit us for dinner.

x
Mulder: Hey, buddy, that's OK. You can build it again. Just start again. OK?

x
Mulder: Who's there? Who are you?

Fowley: Hundreds of little joys. To open a door and have a woman beckon you in. To have her make a fire and lay the table for you. And when it's late, to feel her take you into her arms.


[commercial break]


[answering machine]: This is Tena Mulder. I'm not in to take your call. Please, leave your message.

Scully: This is Dana Scully. As before, you can reach me at your son's office at the FBI. Thank you.

x
Skinner [on the phone]: Skinner.

Scully: Sir, did you send me this book?

Skinner: Excuse me?

Scully: This book. It explains everything that I found in Africa...using the same symbols that I found on the ship.

Skinner: Agent Scully, I asked you not to involve me in this.

Scully: It's all here, sir--a foretelling of mass extinction; a myth about a man who can save us from it. That's why they took Mulder. They think that his illness is a gift; protection against the coming plague.

Skinner's Assistant: I'm sorry, agent Scully. The assistant director has given me express orders not to let you in.

x
Scully: Sir...are you hurt? Are you cut? [to assistant]: Get on the phone.

x
Scully: Hey! Stop that man!

x
Mulder: Good morning.

Fowley: What's wrong, Fox?

Mulder: There's nothing wrong. Perfect. It's all perfect. What the hell am I doing here?

Fowley: You just need some coffee.

Mulder: No, I'm serious. I have commitments--to the x-files, to Scully, to my sister...

Fowley: You think you know what that means...commitment. It's all just childish, Fox.

Mulder: Childish?

Fowley: Yes. You've been a child, with only the responsibilities of a child, to your own dreams and fantasies. But you won't know the true joy of responsibility until you plant your feet in the world...and become a father.

Mulder: Wow. Diana...if you lay all this on me after I sleep with you one time, what's it going to be like tomorrow?

Fowley: You have to let go, Fox.

Mulder: Just like that? I'm supposed to slip into domestic bliss even after I was dropped off here by a man I have every reason to believe left here to carry on his dirty work.

Fowley: Hey. He lives the next block over. We'll go visit after breakfast.

x
Scully: You told someone, didn't you? You let the information out.

Kritschgau: What are you talking about?

Scully: A man attacked Skinner in his office.

Kritschgau: For what?

Scully: For what he knows about Mulder.

Kritschgau: I haven't told anyone.

Scully: What is this? These are mine. You hacked into my files. What are you doing with these?

Kritschgau: Having them analyzed.

Scully: By whom?

Kritschgau: National Institute of Health.

Scully: What?

Kritschgau: The material you have there--encrypted data that describes advanced human genetics--where did you get it?

Scully: This was not supposed to go public.

Kritschgau: Wherever you got it, that data supports what's happened to Mulder. It proves what he's become--biologically alien. What are you hiding?

Scully: It doesn't matter.

Kritschgau: It matters to someone. Whoever it is, it sounds like they're looking for Mulder, too.

x
CM: I wasn't expecting you so soon. I thought you'd take a few days to settle in.

Fowley: I think you need to allay his unhappiness with things he perceives as left undone.

Mulder: Including why you live in a bigger house than I do.

CM: I've got quite a few mouths to feed--three grandkids...and, uh...your sister. She's been living here all along...living a life you'd forsaken.

Samantha: He said you were coming.

x
CM: A man has high hopes for his son, but he never dreams his boy's going to change the world. I'm so proud of this man, the depth of his capacity for suffering.

Fowley: Like father, like son.

CM: They think what he has is killing him, but, in actuality, he's never been more alive.

Fowley: Do you think he dreams?

CM: I'm sure he dreams.

Fowley: About what, I wonder.

CM: The dreams all men who are owned by the world have...a simpler life, full of small pleasures. Extraordinary men are always most tempted by the most ordinary things. Dreams are all he has now.


[commercial break]

FBI HEADQUARTERS
WASHINGTON, D.C.


Scully: ... a cigarette, agent Fowley?

Fowley: I don't smoke.

Scully: Really? I could swear I smell cigarette smoke on you.

Fowley: Let's cut the crap, shall we?

Scully: Yes. Let's. Where's Mulder?

Fowley: Maybe before you go around blaming everyone for what's happened to Mulder, you could think about what you could have done to prevent it.

Scully: I just want you to think. Think of Mulder when you met him. Think of the promise and the life in front of him. Think of him now. And then try and stand there, in front of me, look me in the eye, and tell me Mulder wouldn't bust his ass trying to save you.

Fowley: I'm thinking, agent Scully. I'm always thinking.

x
Man: It's a chance none of us ever expected...let alone hoped for. After all these years trying to develop a compatible alien-human hybrid, and to have one already made.

CM: All these years...all the questioning why...why keep Mulder alive? When it was so simple to remove the threat that he posed?

Man: There was no way you could have predicted this.

CM: The fact remains, he's become our savior. He's immune to the coming viral apocalypse. He's the hero here.

Man: He may not survive the procedure.

CM: Then he suffers a hero's fate.

x
Mulder: Diana?

Fowley: Fox? It's time, honey.

Fowley [to kids]: Hey, how you doing?

x
CM: Don't think of the man...think of the sacrifice he's making for all of us, for the world.

Fowley: It would've been nice to give him a choice.

CM: You don't think Mulder would've chosen this? To become the thing he sought for so long? To feel what it's like? He is what he sought.

Fowley: We'll never know.

CM: Besides, his task is almost complete. I'll carry the burden from here on in.

x
CM: I know about the boy. The boy on the beach. The vision you go to in your mind. We all have such places...born of memory and desire.

Mulder: I'm seen him thousands of times. I've never seen what he wants me to see.

CM: Close your eyes. He's ready to show you if you're ready to see.

x
Mulder: Wow. What did you make?

Boy: An unidentified flying object.

Mulder: What are...what are you doing? Why are you destroying your spaceship?

Boy: It's your spaceship, and you're destroying it. You were supposed to help me.

x
Albert: You're running out of time.

Scully: Why do you come to me like this? Why? When I can't find him.

Albert: You don't look in the right place.

Scully: I don't think you're hearing me.

Albert: You don't know where he is?

Scully: Even if I did, I wouldn't know how to save him. This science makes no sense to me.

Albert: Have you looked for him here?

Scully: Are you asking me to pray?

Albert: There are more worlds than the one you can hold in your hand.

x
CM: I hope you see the poetry in this, Diana.

Fowley: You're removing genetic material that may kill your son.

CM: We're forcing the next step in evolution to save man. We're doing God's work, Diana. Without this immunity, everyone would die. This knowledge is God's blessing. I'll carry on for Mulder from here.


[commercial break]


Fowley: Your patient's come out. Mulder's awake.

Man: I've got him topped off, but he won't stay under. I don't think we can take him any further.

Man: Is he feeling any pain?

Man: Flat on the monitor. Any flatter, he'd be circling the drain.

Man: OK, let's do this thing.

x
CM: Rest, Mulder.

Mulder: Can you open the blinds? I'd like to take a look outside.

CM: I want you to have peace.

Mulder: Where's Samantha?

CM: Your sister died 5 years ago.

Mulder: What about Deep Throat?

CM: We've been over this. He's dead. Diana's dead. And Scully.

Mulder: Scully's dead?

CM: She's dead. It's time for you to let go. They are waiting for you, if you let go. Close your eyes, Fox.

Mulder: We're the last, you and I.

CM: The end, and the beginning. There's nothing to be done. Nothing at all.

x
Mulder: Scully...I knew you'd come. They told me you were dead.

Scully: And you believed them? Traitor.

Mulder: What?

Scully: Deserter. Coward.

Mulder: Scully, don't. I'm dying.

Scully: You're not supposed to die, not here.

Mulder: What do you mean?

Scully: Not in a comfortable bed, with the devil outside.

Mulder: No, you don't understand. He's taking care of me.

Scully: No, Mulder. He's lulled you to sleep. He's made you trade your true mission for creature comforts.

Mulder: There was no mission. There were no aliens.

Scully: No aliens? Have you looked outside, Mulder?

Mulder: I can't...I'm too tired.

Scully: No, Mulder. You must get up. You must get up and fight. Especially you. This isn't your place. Get up, Mulder. Get up and fight the fight.

Mulder: Scully...Scully...Scully...Scully...

Scully: Mulder. Mulder, you've got to wake up. I've got to get you out of here. Mulder, can you understand me? Mulder, you've got to get up. I don't know how much time we have. You've got to get up, Mulder. No one can do it but you, Mulder. Mulder, help me. Please, Mulder.

Mulder: You...help...me.


ONE WEEK LATER


Mulder: Scully, what are you doing here? Actually, I was just getting dressed to come see you but I...I couldn't find a tie to go with my victory cap.

Scully: Mulder, no work. You have to go back to bed.

Mulder: Oh, wait. Tie goes to the runner. Scully, I, um...I was coming down...to work, to tell you that Albert Hosteen is dead. He died last night in New Mexico. He'd been in a coma for two weeks. There was...no way he could have been in your apartment.

Scully: He was there--we...we prayed together. Mulder, I don't believe that. I...I don't believe it. It's impossible.

Mulder: Isn't it any more impossible than what you saw in Africa, or what you saw in me?

Scully: I don't know what to believe anymore. Mulder, I was so determined to find a cure to save you that I could deny what it was that I saw and now I don't even know...I don't know...I don't know what the truth is. I don't know who to listen to. I don't know who to trust. Diana Fowley was found murdered this morning. I never trusted her...but she helped save your life just as much as I did. She gave me that book. It was her key that led me to you. I'm sorry...I'm so sorry. I know she was your friend.

Mulder: Scully, I was like you once--I didn't know who to trust. Then I...I chose another path...another life, another fate, where I found my sister. The end of my world was unrecognizable and upside down. There was one thing that remained the same. You...were my friend, and you told me the truth. Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant...my touchstone.

Scully: And you are mine.