Episode Summary

Mulder continues to search for clues about Samantha's abduction and ultimately finds the long-sought-after answers to her fate.

Part two of two

Episode Details

Cast

Guest Cast

Quotes

Mulder: [voiceover] They said the birds refused to sing and the thermometer fell suddenly... as if God Himself had His breath stolen away. No one there dared speak aloud, as much in shame as in sorrow. They uncovered the bodies one by one. The eyes of the dead were closed as if waiting for permission to open them. Were they still dreaming of ice cream and monkey bars? Of birthday cake and no future but the afternoon? Or had their innocence been taken along with their lives, buried in the cold earth so long ago? These fates seemed too cruel, even for God to allow. Or are the tragic young born again when the world's not looking? I want to believe so badly; in a truth beyond our own, hidden and obscured from all but the most sensitive eyes... In the endless procession of souls, in what cannot and will not be destroyed. I want to believe we are unaware of God's eternal recompense and sadness. That we cannot see His truth. That that which is born still lives and cannot be buried in the cold earth. But only waits to be born again at God's behest... where in ancient starlight we lay, in repose.


Scully: Ed Truelove was 19 when he committed his first murder. He was working as a janitor at an elementary school and they needed someone to play Santa Claus. He never got over the feelings it aroused. He's admitted to all of it, Mulder. 24 separate murders. But he refuses to take blame for Amber Lynn LaPierre. I was just handed the preliminary forensics report. Her body was not one of those found in the graves. Mulder, I know you wanted to find her out there.

Mulder: He's got hours of video of her.

Scully: I'm talking about your sister. I know that's who you're looking for.

Mulder: Yeah. You don't know how badly I wanted her to be in one of those graves. As hard as it is to admit, I wanted to find her here riding her bike like all these other kids. I guess I just want it to be over.


Mulder: Mr Piller?

Harold Piller: Agent Mulder. Agent Scully.

Scully: Do we know each other?

Harold Piller: Not personally, but I'm happy to meet you. Hi. Harold Piller.

Scully: Mr Piller, are you part of this investigation?

Harold Piller: Yes, I hope to be.

Mulder: How can we help you?

Harold Piller: I was hoping to help you. [He hands Scully his business card]

Scully: You're a police psychic.

Harold Piller: My references are on the back. I've gotten some... strong hits off this case. You're looking for a little girl but she's not among the dead. Your suspect is going to say he didn't kill her.

Mulder: Did he?

Harold Piller: No. I think I can help find her.

Scully: Mr Piller, you have some interesting references here. You've, uh, worked with law enforcements in Kashmir, India, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Khyber Pass...

Harold Piller: That was a train wreck. A horrible tragedy. They called me in to locate the bodies of seven children who were unrecovered.

Scully: And did you recover them?

Harold Piller: I didn't recover them, no. But I explained what happened.

Mulder: What happened?

Harold Piller: The children's bodies... were transported from the accident site by a spiritual intervention — what are known as walk-ins.

Scully: Thank you, Mr Piller, but we have real work to be done.

Harold Piller: I've studied this phenomenon the world over. Mudslides in Peru, earthquakes in Uzbekistan... Kids' bodies never found, never accounted for in any other way.

Mulder: What happened to them?

Harold Piller: The bodies were transported from the various sites, in starlight.

Scully: Please excuse us. [She takes Mulder aside to speak with him privately] Mulder... Mulder, please.

Mulder: What is it?

Scully: Mulder, you have been through so much in such a short time — the death of your mother and the feelings it's brought up for your sister — you're vulnerable right now.

Mulder: We still have a missing body — Amber Lynn LaPierre — she may be alive; we don't know.

Scully: Yes, but this man isn't going to help us find her, by his own admission.

Mulder: It's not the first time I've heard what he's saying. About the intervention of these walk-in spirits? Kathy Lee Tencate mentioned it to me in prison. She said that's what took her son.

Scully: Because it's foolproof, Mulder. Nobody is going to disprove it if there's no body. I mean, that's exactly what this man does. He gives a, a comforting explanation that a train wreck or an earthquake that everyone can live with, but the fact is the bodies are still buried.

Mulder: Or maybe they are somewhere else.

Scully: Like your sister. Mulder... You told me that all you wanted was for this to be over.

Mulder: I do... I do.

Scully: Well, then I'm going back to Washington. There's nothing more to be done here.


Mulder: How long have you been doing this?

Harold Piller: A few years. I have a son who disappeared... under strange circumstances. He's never been found. And then one day I just, uh... started to see them.

Mulder: These walk-ins — you say they come and take the children. Why?

Harold Piller: In almost every case the parents had a precognitive image of their child dead. Horrible visions. I believe what this is, is the work of good spirits. Foretelling their fates. The fate the child was about to meet. A particularly violent fate that wasn't meant to be... which is why the spirits intervene transforming matter into pure energy. Starlight. But it's not what happened here.

Mulder: How do you know that?

Harold Piller: Because these children... all died suffering. Pleading innocently for their lives. These beautiful children, so... trusting and pure. I see them. My God, why? Why must some suffer and not others?

Mulder: You see them. Do you see Amber Lynn LaPierre?

Harold Piller: She wasn't here. She never was. But I'm... I'm sensing a connection with her... to this place. It... No, it's a connection to... It's a connection to you.

Mulder: How's that?

Harold Piller: You lost someone close to you. A young girl. It happened a... a long time ago. A sister. There's a connection between these girls, isn't there? Between her and Amber Lynn.

Mulder: What is the connection?

Harold Piller: I don't know. But we're going to find them. I'm sure of it.


[Scully and Agent Schoniger are watching the original videotape of Mulder's regression hypnosis about Samantha]

Agent Schoniger: By what I can tell from the tape he seems to be in a legitimate hypnotic state. [Mulder is starting to describe the abduction] Here I became suspicious.

Scully: Suspicious of what?

Agent Schoniger: In 30 years with the FBI, you think you've seen it all. I sometimes think I have. But this is just garden-variety compensatory abduction fantasy.

Scully: Compensatory for what?

Agent Schoniger: His guilt, his fear... everything that's preventing Agent Mulder from remembering the truth about what really happened that night.

Scully: You mean his sister wasn't abducted.

Agent Schoniger: No, his sister definitely went missing in 1973 — that's not in dispute. Agent Mulder, however, wasn't regressed until 1989. See, his delusion is playing into his unconscious hope that his sister is still alive... and if you think about it, his delusion has the effect of giving a reason to pursue her.

Scully: But why alien abduction?

Agent Schoniger: Close Encounters, ET, who knows? But there was probably a lot of imagery collecting in his head in those 16 years and then he comes down here and he finds the X-Files.

Scully: So what do you think happened to his sister?

Agent Schoniger: Well, in 1973, we were pretty damned unsophisticated about violent, predatory crime. My guess is she was kidnapped in the house, her body was disposed of, never found.

Scully: You think that his sister's dead?

Agent Schoniger: Have you seen this file? There was an extraordinary amount of effort put into finding his sister. Even the treasury department got involved. His father worked at a high level in the government. They found nothing. Why, Agent Scully? Why do you want to bring all this back up now?

Scully: Someone owes it to Mulder.

Agent Schoniger: Word of advice, me to you: let it be. You know, there's some wounds that are just too painful ever to be reopened.

Scully: Well, this particular wound has never healed. And Mulder deserves closure, just like anyone.


Mulder: What? What are you doing?

Harold Piller: I'm picking up something.

Mulder: It's 3 o'clock in the morning.

Harold Piller: There's someone here.

Mulder: Yeah, the TV is on.

Harold Piller: No. A visitor. They... they want to speak. They want to tell us something.

Mulder: What?

Harold Piller: Get a piece of paper. And a pen. [Mulder holds pen and paper out to him] No, you.

Mulder: Shoot.

Harold Piller: It's your mother. She's here in the room with us. She's trying to speak to you.

Mulder: What does she say?

Harold Piller: She wants to tell you about your sister. Where she is. [A transparent Teena Mulder is standing behind Mulder]

Mulder: What is she saying? Harold?

Harold Piller: I don't know. I... She's gone.

Mulder: Come on, Harold.

Harold Piller: I lost her.

Mulder: That's crap. You're full of crap.

Harold Piller: No.

Mulder: Get out of here.

Harold Piller: I'm telling you...

Mulder: No, I'm telling you. I never should have listened to you.

Harold Piller: She was here. She had a message.

Mulder: Please go.

Harold Piller: Look. [He holds up the paper that Mulder was writing on. The words APRIL BASE have been written on it]

Mulder: Who wrote that?

Harold Piller: You did.


Mulder: [answering mobile phone] Mulder.

Scully: Mulder, it's me. I found something, and I'm standing here not quite believing what it is.

Mulder: What is it?

Scully: I don't know if you know this, but there was a special treasury department investigation into Samantha's disappearance.

Mulder: In 1973. I know all about that.

Scully: Well, I'm in your mother's house and I found a piece of a document that she burned — a document that matches one that I found in the treasury investigation file. But she had the original, Mulder.

Mulder: I don't see where you're going with this, Scully.

Scully: This is the document that effectively calls off the search for your sister, Mulder. And it's signed with the initials CGBS. CGB Spender. The smoking man. He was involved with this back in '73.

Mulder: Well, that's not exactly a revelation, Scully. He was a friend of my father's.

Scully: Mulder, you told me you believe that he's the man that killed your father. That he's the man who's done nothing but confound your work. Who's come close to killing you and here he's ordering people to stop looking for your sister.

Mulder: I don't see what you think this proves or how you think it's going to help me find her now.

Scully: You don't want to press him?

Mulder: It's a dead end. He's never been of any help and he's not going to be of any help now. Look, I'm pursuing this my own way, all right? I got to go.


Mulder and Harold Piller drive up to a chain link fence surrounding a deserted military base — April Air Force Base — and get out of the car]

Mulder: Not exactly the end of the rainbow, is it, Harold?

Harold Piller: There's something here. I'm getting a strong sense of it. I think we should have a look.

Mulder: I've had a look.

Harold Piller: What are you afraid of? That you'll really find her? That you'd have to deal with it?

Mulder: There's nothing here. It's a decommissioned base.

Harold Piller: You wrote the name down yourself.

Mulder: Why do you care so much about what I feel? Why is it so important to you?

[A car pulls up on the other side of the fence and the Base officer gets out]

Base Officer: You gentlemen need to move along. I have to ask you to turn around and get back in your car. There's nothing to see here.

Harold Piller: There is something here to see, Agent Mulder. I'm sure of it.


[The phone is ringing as Scully enters her apartment]

Scully: [answering phone] Hello? [All she hears is a dial tone]

Smoking Man: I should've grabbed it for you. I like to make myself useful.

Scully: You can start by putting out that cigarette.

Smoking Man: Got it all figured out, don't you, Agent Scully?

Scully: All but why you can't just come to the door and knock.

Smoking Man: I did that. No one answered.

Scully: You're sick.

Smoking Man: I had an operation.

Scully: What do you want?

Smoking Man: I want you to stop looking.

Scully: You've wanted that since 1973... when you ordered an end to the search for Agent Mulder's sister. Your initials are on that document.

Smoking Man: Yes, I signed that order because I knew then what I know now: No one's going to find her.

Scully: Why not?

Smoking Man: Because I believe she's dead. No reason to believe otherwise.

Scully: You're a liar. If you knew that she was dead why didn't you say something earlier? Why now?

Smoking Man: There was so much to protect before. It's all gone now.

Scully: So you just let Mulder believe that she was alive for all these years.

Smoking Man: Out of kindness, Agent Scully. Allow him his ignorance. It's what gives him hope.


[Mulder and Harold Piller sneak into the base at night and head into the residential section]

Mulder: My sister was here?

Harold Piller: Yes.

Mulder: In one of these houses? Where?

Harold Piller: I've lost it, whatever it was.

Mulder: Which house, Harold? Come on, which house?

Harold Piller: I don't know.

Mulder: Harold, we don't have all night. Come on, which house was it? [The Base officer's car approaches and they hide from sight] Let's go, Harold. [As they leave, Mulder looks down at the footpath] You were right. This was the house.

Harold Piller: How do you know?

Mulder: Look. [He points down at a handprint in the concrete with SAMANTHA written under it]

Harold Piller: I told you. What did I tell you?

Mulder: You told me she was here. You didn't say with who. [Beneath Samantha's name is another handprint with the name JEFFREY]


Scully: When did you come up with this story, Mulder? Because yesterday, when I spoke to you, you said that the Smoking Man wasn't involved.

Mulder: Well, it turns out you were right, Scully. He had every reason to call off the hunt for my sister. After her abduction, she was returned to him and he raised her at the military base along with his son, Jeffrey Spender.

Scully: Mulder...

Mulder: Scully, I saw her name in the cement. Her handprints, right next to his.

Scully: Mulder, I spoke to him. The Smoking Man, CGB Spender, whatever his name is...

Mulder: You went to him?

Scully: He told me that she was dead.

Mulder: Oh, well... he's a liar.

Scully: Mulder, why would he lie now? I mean, think about it. It hurts me to tell you this.

Mulder: The handprints prove he's a liar! I saw her handprints in the cement. Her name, Samantha, right underneath them. How more obvious can it be? Harold Piller led me there. He led me right to them.

Scully: Oh, he led you, Mulder. He led you from the moment that he met you.


Harold Piller: Something wrong?

Mulder: Sit down, Harold.

Harold Piller: [to Scully] Hi. You're back.

Mulder: Agent Scully has informed me that you failed to mention something to me when we first met.

Harold Piller: What?

Mulder: That you're currently the subject of a criminal investigation into the murder of your son.

Harold Piller: My son was taken from me. The police need someone to blame.

Scully: That's not all, Harold. Your history of mental illness. You were institutionalised, diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Harold Piller: I've got that under control. You wouldn't have believed me if I told you any of that. Look what I've shown you.

Mulder: You only tell me what you see.

Harold Piller: I came to you because I want to help. You think I'm a fraud. What do I have to gain from this? How am I any different from you? All I want is to find my son. I... I just... I just want my little boy back. I see these things. I don't know how, but... there has got to be a reason and if it's not to help, what is it? I know your sister is out there. Maybe I can prove it to you.


[Mulder, Scully and Harold Piller sneak into the base again and head to the house with the handprints outside]

Scully: Well, whoever's lived here hasn't lived here in a long time.

Harold Piller: We're going to need to hold hands.

Scully: What do you mean?

Harold Piller: I'm going to try and summon their presence into the house.

Scully: Oh, yay. A seance. I haven't done that since high school.

Mulder: [to Scully] Maybe afterwards we can play postman and spin the bottle.

Harold Piller: I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to be very quiet and still. That's how it seems to work best. Um, you might experience a sudden chill or feel a... a pressure in your ears. That means they're here. And if they need to, they'll let themselves be seen. Close your eyes and let them come to you. They will come to you if you're ready to see.

Scully: How will we know?

Harold Piller: Shh. Stay quiet. You'll know.

[All around them are glowing, ghostly figures, just standing, watching them. Mulder looks down and sees a small boy, who takes his hand from Scully's and leads him to another room. Scully wakes up and, finding Mulder missing, checks in the other room]

Scully: Mulder? What are you doing?

Mulder: It's here.

Scully: What is?

Mulder: There was a boy; he led me into this room. [He begins breaking through a built-in wall bookshelf and finds a small book]

Scully: Mulder?

Harold Piller: It's a diary. It's your sister's.


Mulder: [reading] They did more tests today, but not the horrible kind. I was awake and they made me lay still... while they shined lights in my eyes. They asked me questions, but I always lie now and tell them what they want to hear, just to make them stop. I hate them and I hate the way they treat me... like I'm an old suitcase they can just drag around and open up whenever they want to. They know I hate them, but they don't even care. This is 1979. She's 14 years old here. 14 years old. [He turns the pages to later entries] Sometimes I think my memories were taken by the doctors but not all of them. I remember faces. I think I had a brother... with brown hair, who used to tease me. I hope some day he reads this and knows I wish I could see his face for real. And then, uh... she's, uh... talking about running away. She wants to run away so that they stop doing the tests. And then it just stops.

[The final page of the diary reads: No more. No more tests. No more questions. I'm getting out of here and not turning back. Tonight. Tonight I'm going to run far, far away. I can't let them catch me. They'll kill me if they do. Running for my life, for the rest of my life.]

Scully: Let's get out of here.


Mulder: You know, I never stop to think... that the light is billions of years old by the time we see it. From the beginning of time right past us into the future. Nothing is ancient in the universe. But, maybe they are souls, Scully. Travelling through time as starlight, looking for homes. I wonder what my mother saw. And I wonder what she was trying to tell me.

Scully: Go get some sleep.

Mulder: All right.


Scully: I got it, Mulder. I couldn't believe it when I saw it. It was like it was looking for me. Sergeant's blotter, 1979. [The report read: Approximately 14 year old girl picked up. Runaway claims she was held hostage... hospital for exam.]

Mulder: What are you talking about?

Scully: The description matches your sister.

Mulder: When did you find this?

Scully: Mulder, it's almost noon.


Scully: Maybe she went by another name. She could have given them a name other than her own.

Mulder: She didn't give a name at all. Read this. It's the medical report. The admittance notes say the ER nurses couldn't get her name out of her. Neither could the cops.

Scully: Her medical examination is normal. Her mental state — it says here she was exhibiting signs of paranoia.

Mulder: [reading] Evidence of probable self-inflicted abuse. Including small crescent-shaped scars on her knees, wrists and chest. Those were from the tests, Scully. That's her. She was here. 14 years old, in this hospital.

Scully: [reading] Diagnosis of condition incomplete... tests unavailable.

Mulder: And he knew. He lied. He knew she was alive and the only reason he's lying now is because she's still alive.

Scully: Mulder, wait.

Mulder: I know. You don't want me to get my hopes up. I understand that.

Scully: That was 1979. It was 21 years ago. I don't even know where to begin and... and we don't even have a record here of a doctor signing her out.

Mulder: We have an ER nurse who signed her in.


Scully: What's wrong?

Mulder: I have this... powerful feeling and I can't explain it, but that... this is the end of the road. That I've been brought here to learn the truth.

Scully: Are you ready for it? [Mulder nods] Do you want me to go talk to her myself? [Mulder nods] Okay.


Arbutus Ray: I thought that was the door.

Scully: Arbutus Ray?

Arbutus Ray: Yes.

Scully: Are you the same Arbutus Ray that worked as a nurse at the Dominic Savio Memorial Hospital in 1979?

Arbutus Ray: Yes, I'm she.

Scully: I'd like to ask you about a patient you treated... a 14-year-old girl. [She hands Arbutus Ray a file]

Arbutus Ray: I remember, yes. She was such a pretty young girl. You couldn't forget someone like her or how frightened she was. Scared for her sweet life. Deputy brought her in, she was shaking like a leaf. Wouldn't let anyone touch her but me. Then the strangest thing happened...

Harold Piller: You had a vision of her... dead, like the parents of Amber Lynn LaPierre.

Arbutus Ray: No one believed me. Honestly you're the first person who...

Scully: So you saw her dead?

Arbutus Ray: That night, in her bed I blinked and it was gone. She was sleeping as sound as could be. I don't know why but it made some kind of strange sense.

Scully: What do you mean?

Arbutus Ray: There were men. They came to pick her up, late that night. I assumed the one was her father but he gave me such a chill when he looked at me when I asked him would he please put out his cigarette.

Scully: So they took her?

Arbutus Ray: They meant to but when I took them to her room she was gone. Disappeared out of a locked room. Just vanished.


[Mulder is walking into the woods nearby, he sees the ghostly image of the boy from the base. The boy takes Mulder's hand and leads him up a small hill. There are lots of ghostly, glowing children of all ages playing together, all ages. They are all happy. Mulder sees Amber Lynn LaPierre, who looks up and smiles at him, he smiles back. Then he sees a pretty young brown haired girl running toward him]

Mulder: Samantha."

[The glowing 14-year-old girl embraces him warmly. Mulder is smiling]


Scully: Mulder, where did you go?

Mulder: End of the road. [to Harold Piller] He's okay. It's okay.

Harold Piller: My son? You saw my son?

Mulder: He's dead. They're all dead, Harold. Your son, Amber Lynn, and my sister.

Harold Piller: No.

Mulder: Harold, you see so much, but you refuse to see him. You refuse to let him go. But you have to let him go now, Harold. He's protected. He's in a better place. They're all in a better place. We both have to let go, Harold.

Harold Piller: You're wrong. I'm going to find him. I don't believe you. [He walks away]

Scully: Mulder, what happened? Are you sure you're all right?

Mulder: I'm fine. I'm free.

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