episode by Glen Morgan and James Wong
summary by Pellinor
Internal dating: Scully is returned on November 1994, three months after she was taken. No date is given here, but "3" is set in November, and "Firewalker" begins on November 11th. Implausibly tight dating, clearly.
As the camera shows a sky of clouds, Mrs Scully begins to talk in voice-over about Dana's childhood. The sky of clouds becomes the woods in autumn, as young Dana, ever the tomboy, is going out with her brothers to shoot with a gun for the first time. The boys found a garter snake and they took aim at it, and Dana joined in. When she saw it bleed she started crying and held the snake, although scared of them, and watched it die. "There was nothing she could do to bring it back," Mrs Scully says, as the camera shows her face for the first time.
"It's too soon, Mrs Scully," Mulder says. "We can't give up." Mrs Scully says she knows how Dana felt then - there's nothing she can do to bring her back. At last it is revealed where Mulder and Mrs Scully are, as a man brings out Scully's memorial stone for their approval:
"Dana Katherine Scully, 1964 - 1994, Loving daughter and friend. The spirit is the Truth, 1 John 5.07"
Mulder is lying on the couch in the dark, the X-File on Scully scattered around the room, when he gets a phone call.
Northeast Georgetown Medical Center. Mulder, still in his shirt-sleeves, rushes down the corridor, bursting through a door that reads "Emergency Personnel only." Scully is lying unconscious, completely covered with tubes and leads, while Mrs Scully silently sits at her side. "Who brought her here?" Mulder asks. "How did she get here?" He fires questions at the doctor, shouting at the top of his voice. "Answer me right now!" he shouts, "Who did this to her?" He starts throwing files to the floor, looking for her admission form, and is dragged away by orderlies. "If you're with Them - if you're hiding anything, I swear I will do anything... Whatever it takes I will find out what they did to her," he shouts
Dr Daly tells Mulder and Mrs Scully that Dana is in a critical condition, in a coma. No-one knows how she got here, or how long she's been in this state. They have done every test they have and can't find what's causing her condition. Mulder wants her examined for trace evidence, but the doctor says she's been bathed already. The doctor also says that, according to Scully's living will, she doesn't want to live in this condition. Mulder signed the living will as her witness.
When they go back to Scully's bedside, her sister Melissa is there, holding a crystal over Dana's body. She says Dana has just told her not to call Mulder "Fox". "Her soul is here," she says. "Dana's choosing whether to remain or move on," Mrs Scully leaves the room at this, but Mulder joins her in holding hands above Scully's body.
Scully is then shown sitting absolutely still in a boat, tethered to a landing stage. Melissa, Mulder and a nurse stand on the landing stage watching her. Mulder and Melissa's voices are heard over the images. "She's not here," says Mulder, and Melissa tells him he's inflicting her anger on her. "Your fear's blocking the positive emotions she needs to feel," she says. Mulder pulls away, saying "I need to do more than just wave my hands in the air."
Mulder puts an X in his window and stays up all night but X doesn't show, and there is no message left in his newspaper.
Frohike, in a suit and bow-tie, appears at the hospital with flowers for Scully. He picks up Scully's chart, "This is weird," he says.
At the office of the Lone Gunmen, Byers studies the chart and says it shows abnormal protein chains in the blood, with amino acid sequences in a combination he's never seen before. He's sent the information to a new member, the Thinker (the hacker who plays such an important part in Anasazi). The Thinker reports that the protein chains are the by-products of branched DNA, the cutting edge of genetic engineering. "This is way beyond cutting edge," says Langly. "This is technology 50 years down the line." They speculate it could be some experimental form of biological tracking system - a high-tech identity card. It could even be "something as insidious as grafting a human to something inhuman" says Langly. Byers then tells them the branched DNA is inactive. "Whoever was experimenting on Scully has finished," he says. "Now it's nothing more than a biological poison." Mulder asks if she will live, with Byers says her immune system has been decimated, and even a healthy person would be hard pressed to fight this. "Mulder, there's nothing you can do," he says.
Scully floats in the boat as a nurse, Nurse Owens, talks soothingly to her. She's here to help her find the way home, she says. The place she's in is peaceful, but she will find her way home in time. Mulder comes in and watches Nurse Owens leave, and another nurse come in to take some blood. He glimpses a man in a suit in the next cubicle. When the nurse is called away by an emergency, she leaves the tube of blood, but when Mulder turns back it is gone.
Mulder chases the man in a suit down the corridor, just missing him in the elevator. He runs down the stairs to an underground garage, but is grabbed himself by X, who looks desperate, holding a gun at his head. He orders Mulder to abandon his search for answers about Scully. Mulder angrily accuses X of ignoring his calls for help and says he can go to Hell.
"You got him killed!" X says, talking about Deep Throat. "You got her killed! That's not going to happen to me. You're my tool, you understand? I come to you when I need you. Right now you're heading in a direction that can lead them right here."
Mulder: "I owe her more than just sitting around doing nothing"
X: "She was a good soldier, Mulder, but there is nothing you can do to bring her back."
Mulder: "She's not dead!"
X (laughing, somewhat hysterically) "Listen to you. You're a damn schoolboy. You have no idea."
Mulder demands that he tell him the truth - if he has no idea. why doesn't X tell him?
X: "I used to be you. I was where you are now. But you're not me, Mulder. I don't think you have the heart. Walk away. Grieve for Scully and then never look back. You will be able to live with yourself, Mulder."
Mulder breaks free from X and goes after the man with the blood, managing to hold him at gunpoint, and getting the blood back. However, when he tells the man to walk, the man kicks the gun from his hand and knocks Mulder to the floor. X then appears and shoots the man, then executes him with a single bullet in the head. "You want to see what it takes to find the truth, Agent Mulder," he says, just before pulling the trigger. "You want to know what the things I know?"
Back at the hospital the doctor plans to discontinue the respirator. Mulder wants the branched DNA to be treated with designer antibiotics, but the doctor calls this a "bizarre diagnosis" and won't listen. Mulder wants to study her, but Melissa objects, saying she's not a piece of evidence. "She's here because of unnatural circumstances," Mulder tells her, but Melissa says "she's dying. That's perfectly natural." She thinks prolonging life with machines is more unnatural than anything else done to her sister. "That's very politically correct," Mulder says. "That's very human," she replies. "I love her, but this is right." Mrs Scully then speaks for the first time, saying "Dana has made our decision." She reminds Mulder that he and Scully had a friendship based on respect, and he should respect her decision now. She says this is a moment for the family, but he can join them if he wants to. He shakes his head, as they go in to watch the respirator get turned off.
The rope tying Scully's boat to the landing stage snaps and the boat drifts off.
In Skinner's office, Cancerman gives him a report. "If you're having trouble sitting on Agent Mulder," he says, "I'm sure you know we'll have no trouble." He then begins to light a cigarette, but Skinner points to a new no smoking sign on his desk. Cancerman lights up anyway, just for effect, as he immediately stubs it out without smoking it.
Mulder arrives at Skinner's office just after Cancerman leaves. Skinner confronts him with rumours about an incident at the hospital. "I was with Scully," he replies, when questioned, then, "since I am unfamiliar with any incident, how would I know that?" Angrily, Skinner tells him to knock it off, but Mulder says, "How does it feel? Constant denial of everything? Questions answered with questions?" Skinner demands to know what happened, and Mulder picks up the ashtray. "That's what happened," he says, calling him "Cancerman" for the first time. "You can have it all," he says. "You can have my badge, you can have the X-Files.... Just tell me who he is." Skinner asks what he'd do if he found him - kill him? He reminds him that they work for the department of Justice. "That's what I want," Mulder says. "Agent Scully was a fine officer," Skinner says. "More than that, I liked her - I respected her." He says everyone in the FBI knows the risks. "If you were unprepared for all the potentials you shouldn't have step on the field." "What if I... I knew the potential consequences but I... I never told her?" Mulder asks. "Then you are as much to blame for her condition as Cancerman," Skinner replies.
Scully lies on a table in a white room, all dressed in white. Her father comes in, in naval uniform, and greets her. "I never knew how much I loved my daughter until I could never tell her," he says, talking about his own death. He says he would have traded everything for one more second with her. "We'll be together again, Starbuck," he tells her. "Not now. Soon."
Melissa tells Mulder he could spend the rest of his life looking for the people responsible but it will never bring her back. "Whoever did it to her has an equal horror coming to them," she says. "Including myself?" he asks. She asks what he means, but then a woman comes up and draws attention to a packet of Morleys in the cigarette machine, and he find an address written on a piece of paper inside the packet. 900 W Georgia Street, it reads.
Alone in a barren apartment, Cancerman is watching television when Mulder jumps out, holding a gun to his head.
Cancer Man: "How did you find me?"
Mulder (shouting): "SHUT UP! Tonight I ask the questions, and you're going to answer them, you son of a bitch!"
Cancerman (calmly): "Don't try and threaten me, Mulder. I've watched presidents die."
(Mulder strikes the cigarette from his hand.)
Mulder (voice cracking): "Why her? Why her and not me?...... ANSWER ME!"
Cancerman: "I like you. I like her too. That's why she was returned to you."
(Mulder looks steadily at him, the gun at his head.)
Mulder: "You should be the one to die."
Cancerman: "Why? Look at me. No wife. No family. Some power. I'm in the game because I believe what I'm doing is right."
Mulder: "Right? Who are you to decide what's right?"
Cancerman: "Who are you? If people were to know of the things that I know, it would all fall apart. I told Skinner you shot the man in the hospital but I didn't really believe it. And here you are with a gun to my head. I have more respect for you, Mulder. You're becoming a player. You can kill me now, but you'll never know the truth."
(Mulder tries to pull the trigger, but can't.)
Cancerman: "And that's why I'll win. Don't worry. This will be our secret. We wouldn't want others to... start rumours."
Later, in his office, Mulder prints out his resignation letter and signs it.
As Mulder is packing his things into boxes, Skinner comes in. Mulder calls his office "wasted space," but Skinner shows him the resignation letter and tears it up, calling it "unacceptable." "I know you feel responsible for Agent Scully, but I will not accept resignation and defeat as self-punishment." Mulder says after all the X- Files they still have nothing, and he's lost himself along the way, and Scully. "I hate what I've become," he says.
Skinner tells Mulder how, on his eighteenth birthday, he volunteered to join the Marine Corps in Vietnam. "I did it out of blind faith. I did it because I believed that it was the right thing to do. I don't know - maybe I still do." Three months in to his tour a ten-year old boy covered in grenades walked into the camp, and he blew his head off ."I lost my faith," he says. "Not in my country, or in myself, but in everything. There was just no point to anything any more." Then he was ambushed while on a patrol, and looked down from outside his body, feeling peaceful and afraid. He awoke in a Saigon hospital two weeks later. "I'm afraid to look any further beyond that experience," he says. "You? You're not. Your resignation is unacceptable."
Mulder realises Skinner was the one who gave him Cancerman's address. "You put your life in danger," he says. "Agent Mulder," Skinner replies. "Every life - every day - is a danger. That's just life."
Mulder meets X in a corridor. X says he can't tell him why Scully was taken, as it's too close to him, but he can give him the people responsible. He's got Mulder air tickets out of town, and the men, believing that he has some vital information in his apartment, will pay a visit at 8.17 night, thinking he's out of town. "They will be armed, and you will be waiting... to defend yourself with terminal intensity. " Mulder shuts his eyes. "The law will not punish these people," X says, adding that after tonight Mulder mustn't meet him for a while.
Mulder sits in the darkness with his gun, when Melissa knocks at the door. She tells him Dana's weakening and not expected to last long. She asks Mulder to visit the hospital, but Mulder says he can't. "I don't have to be psychic to see you're in a very dark place," she says. "Much darker than where my sister is. Willingly walking deeper into darkness can not help her at all.... Why don't you just drop your cynicism and your paranoia and your defeat. You know, just because it's positive and good doesn't make it silly, or trite. Why is it so much easier for you to run around trying to get even rather than just expressing to her how you feel? I expects more from you. Dana expects more. Even if it doesn't bring her back, maybe she'll know, and so will you." She leaves, slamming the door, and Mulder picks up his gun again.
Mulder, who's changed his mind, goes to Scully's bedside. He holds her hand. "I feel, Scully, that you believe you're not ready to go, and you've always had the strength of your beliefs. I don't know if my being here will help bring you back, but I'm here. " The clock shows 8.17 - the time they were due to raid his apartment.
Mulder returns home next morning (Presumably, as it's daylight outside) to find the place trashed. Sinking down to the floor, he cries.
Scully seems to be lying in a sunlit wood, which suddenly changes and becomes a hospital room. Her eyes open.
Mulder's sitting alone in the dark, staring into space, when the phone rings. The answering machine is on, but he picks the phone up, listens, and smiles.
Mulder comes into Scully's room. Mrs Scully calls him Fox, but Scully corrects her. Scully says she can't remember anything after Duane Barry, but Mulder says it doesn't matter. He gives her a present - Superstars of the superbowl. "I knew there was a reason to live," she says. He turns to go, looking happy but tongue-tied. "I just came round the see how you were doing - to say hi," he says, taking her hand briefly. She calls him back. "I had the strength of your belief," she says, and he then gives her the gold cross he'd carried for her.
Later, Scully asks to see Nurse Owens, who watched over her in her coma, but is told no-one of that name works at the hospital.