8ABX15 DeadAlive

Scully: He was the last. His father and mother... his sister... all gone. I think the real tragedy... is that for all of his pain and searching... the truth that he worked so hard to find was never truly revealed to him. I can't truly believe that I'm really standing here.

Skinner: I know. And I don't truly believe that... Mulder's the last.

---

Deputy Director Kersh: Smile, John. You look tense. I've asked you here to commend you.

Doggett: What's this?

Deputy Director Kersh: A letter to the director citing your meritorious efforts in the recovery of Agent Fox Mulder. And a recommendation that you be considered for advancement.

Doggett: Sir, the Assistant Director here deserves more credit than I...

Skinner: Deputy Director Kersh spoke to me at length before you came up. He thanked me and asked me to write you a letter, too. Officially transferring you off the X-Files to a division more suited to your talents.

Deputy Director Kersh: Man of my word, Agent Doggett.

Doggett: Thank you for your support, sir. But all things being equal, I... would like to give any transfer some thought.

Deputy Director Kersh: Fish while they're biting, John.

---

Doggett: Hey, good morning, Agent Scully. How you feeling today?

Scully: I'm fine. How are you feeling?

Doggett: Me? Good. But then I don't got a little J Edgar to lug around.

Scully: AD Skinner just called. He told me about your meeting with Kersh.

Doggett: Well, whatever he told you I'm still going to be here to drive you crazy with questions and nagging doubt.

Scully: You'd be crazy to stay, Agent Doggett. This is a huge career opportunity for you.

Doggett: It's not my career he's got in mind.

Scully: What do you mean?

Doggett: In six weeks, you go on maternity leave. Kersh transfers me out, guess what? He gets to lock that door over there for good.

Scully: You don't owe me anything, Agent Doggett.

Doggett: They put me down here to find Mulder. I found him. So what? We still got an open file on this case and I got big questions. What?

Scully: I heard the same speech come out of my mouth seven years ago. Get out while you can, Agent Doggett... or you may never get out at all.

---

Doggett: [answering phone] Yeah.

Skinner: It's Skinner. I want you to meet me at the Bureau in about 20 minutes.

Doggett: For what?

Skinner: I got a call from the police pathologist down in Wilmington, North Carolina. Fishermen pulled in a dead body 50 Miles offshore, which they've now IDed as Billy Miles.

Doggett: Billy Miles?

Skinner: Kid from Oregon. He was abducted same time Mulder was last May.

Doggett: So what's the big hurry now?

Skinner: Now he's alive.

---

Doggett: You told Agent Scully any of what you told me?

Skinner: No.

Doggett: My strong recommendation, sir: don't. This thing pans out or not, you're going to reopen wounds that still need a lot of healing. Not to mention the fact that she's had a difficult pregnancy. You know that as well as anybody.

Skinner: I appreciate your concern, Agent Doggett, but I wouldn't have told her anyway. Certainly not where we're going.

Doggett: Where are we going?

---

Doggett: I'll say it again. We're opening up more than a grave here.

Skinner: I respect that, Agent Doggett, but under the circumstances I think not digging it up would be far more regrettable, don't you?

Doggett: No. I think this is insanity.

Skinner: Yeah, well, personally, I couldn't live with the doubt.

Doggett: That what? That we buried a man alive? We found Mulder, you and me together. We saw the same body. Mulder wasn't just dead, he'd been dead for days. Had to have a closed casket. For crying out loud, the body was too far gone and that was three months ago.

Skinner: The kid they pulled from the ocean, Billy Miles, from the extensive tissue necrosis, they think he could've been in the water for months. Heart beat, rate of metabolism &8212; it slowed to imperceptibility. I mean, the body had rigoured. For all intents and purposes, he was dead. It's a fluke that the doctor even noticed.

Doggett: I don't believe it. I don't believe I'm even standing here.

---

[Mulder's coffin is wheeled into the examining room, to encounter a media circus]

Doggett: What the hell is this?

Arthur Gaffin: Assistant Director Skinner?

Skinner: Yes.

Arthur Gaffin: Arthur Gaffin, County Coroner.

Skinner: I asked you to keep this thing low key.

Arthur Gaffin: Word spreads. Exhumation's big news any day of the week and you had the body moved to another county to a specific pathologist. Well, that takes people and paperwork.

Skinner: I want these people out of here.

Doggett: [to reporters] All right, listen up, ladies and gentlemen. As much as you're here to see the horror show I'm not letting that casket open up until we get some privacy. It's a private matter. Thank you. [The reporters leave]

Dr Orovetz: Agent Skinner, so no one's confused, this is a completely different scenario. I'm only here 'cause you asked for me. I don't expect to find anything in this box but a dead man. It's not going to be Curse Of The Mummy, okay? No claw marks on the lid of the coffin.

Doggett: [to Skinner] I'll say it again: insanity.

[The coffin is opened. Mulder is wearing a suit, he looks pale but well preserved and has three scars on each cheek]

---

Scully: Is it true?

Skinner: Slow down.

Scully: No. I want to see him.

Skinner: I know you do...

Scully: No, I need to see him, damn it!

Skinner: You're not going in there. Scully, you can't.

Scully: Tell me it's true. Tell me.

---

Dr Lim: It's so improbable... and I would have said impossible before this. The clinical fact he's alive when effectively this man, his tissue and I presume his neural and vascular systems are all in a state of decomposition.

Doggett: What does that mean?

Dr Lim: That effectively... he's dead.

---

Scully: What did they say? I need to see him.

Doggett: I know... but I wish you wouldn't.

---

Doggett: You wanted to see me, sir?

Deputy Director Kersh: Yes, John. Please come in. I've been in this office just over six months and I haven't yet had to see a sunrise from it.

Doggett: I believe the sunrise isn't for another hour and six minutes, sir.

Deputy Director Kersh: It serves a man to have useful information, John. One never knows when he might find himself having to survive on his wits alone.

Doggett: Yes, sir.

Deputy Director Kersh: I know you look forward to a future at the FBI, John. You take your job seriously. I hope you took my job offer seriously, too.

Doggett: As I said, I'm thinking about it.

Deputy Director Kersh: I got a call about this... Mulder thing. I want you to drop it.

Doggett: Drop it?

Deputy Director Kersh: You know the tune: if it looks bad, it's bad for the FBI. I'm throwing you a rope. Don't go and hang yourself with it now.

---

[Scully picks up the chart from Billy Miles bed]

3429776 708/1
010411726 5 23124 01
BILLY MILES
078021 70 LIM/LIM
Diagnosis: Acute Hypothermia

[The monitors begin beeping rapidly and Billy Miles' body convulses. The heart monitor seems to be registering two heartbeats, then everything returns to normal, as a nurse enters]

Nurse: Who are you, and what are you doing?

Scully: Nothing. I was just looking in on the patient and he started to go into grand mal seizure. I think he's all right now. It's okay. I'm sorry... I'm a doctor. My name is Scully, and I'm with the FBI.

Nurse: You're here to treat him?

Scully: No. No, I... the man down the hall was my... is my partner and we knew Billy and I guess I was just hoping that there might be some indication that he was getting better... somehow. Anyway... you might want to tell the doctor about this. And... and check those monitors carefully. I think I might have seen some kind of equipment malfunction.

---

Krycek: All aboard.

Skinner: I don't know how you got in this building, Krycek, but whatever it is you want... you can go to hell. [The elevator doors close and Skinner grabs his shoulder in pain, the elevator doors open again] What do you want from me?

Krycek: Let's take a ride.

---

Krycek: The word on the street is he's back from the dead. He's a regular Houdini.

Skinner: Tell me what you want.

Krycek: What I want is to give you the chance to save Mulder's life. You don't believe me?

Skinner: No, I don't.

Krycek: I can push a little button and send the thousands of nanobots lying dormant in your bloodstream sizzling to your brain stem and all I want to do with that power is save a man's life.

Skinner: I don't think his life can be saved.

Krycek: I have a vial that contains a vaccine. Mulder knows of it. His father developed it to fight the alien virus.

Skinner: There's no vaccine can help the man I found in that grave.

Krycek: You found him, and you don't even know what you got. [Skinner lunges for Krycek's small computer, Krycek beats him to it] Push of a button, Walter.

---

Doggett: You can't do this to yourself.

Scully: You asked me not to come in here, Agent Doggett. I hope you're not asking me to leave.

Doggett: Concern's for your well being, Agent Scully. That's all it's ever for. I felt this was a bad idea from the start. I told the Assistant Director so. Worrying about the effect it might have on you.

Scully: You mean finding Mulder alive?

Doggett: I know you came in here with the doctors. I'm sure you must have asked them what his chances are.

Scully: Agent Doggett... However I felt about you when we first met, you changed my opinion, with the quality of your character and of your work. Now, I am thankful to know you and I am thankful for your concern... But no matter what Mulder's chances are, the choice not to open up that grave was wrong. And not because of me personally, but as my partner on the X-Files. Now, the truth may hurt but it's all that matters.

Doggett: What truth?

Scully: About what caused this.

---

Billy Miles: I don't really remember all that much of anything.

Scully: Do you have any idea what you're doing here, Billy? Do you have any conscious memory at all?

Billy Miles: I remember water. And I remember being on the ship.

Doggett: You were found by a fishing boat.

Scully: That's not what you mean... is it, Billy? You mean... a spacecraft.

Billy Miles: They took so many this time. But now I understand. They're here to save us.

Doggett: Well, that's great news. I'm going to let you two talk. [He leaves the room and Scully follows him]

Scully: Agent Doggett... Where are you going?

Doggett: Back to the real world. Why?

Scully: You just won't believe it, will you? Not even for a minute. Not even with it staring you right in the face.

Doggett: Is that so important to you? What I believe or don't believe? I'm really not up to this assignment anyway, as you so gently put it.

Scully: Agent Doggett, you spoke with his doctors. He was lying on his deathbed.

Doggett: I'm with you, Agent Scully. It's a medical mystery, for sure. But don't ask me to take a load of horse crap for the gospel truth.

Scully: I underestimated you, Agent Doggett. I thought this was just simple... resistance to extreme possibilities... when, in fact, you're just downright bull headed.

Doggett: Do you believe it, Agent Scully? I mean that stuff he said about aliens coming to save the world.

---

Skinner: Hi.

Scully: Hi.

Skinner: Nobody called me, about Billy.

Scully: I know. I'm sorry.

Skinner: What, this is incredible.

Scully: It's too incredible. Sir, there isn't a piece of medical data on him that isn't 100% normal.

Skinner: Why are you questioning that... when it could mean that the doctors are wrong about Mulder?

Scully: Because it doesn't make sense. I mean, there should be blood, fluid, electrolyte imbalances. Loss of brain function, but as it is, it's like he shed his skin and literally became a new person. And I don't mean the same person.

Skinner: What are the chances this could be due to an alien influence? Could it be a virus?

Scully: Why are you asking me this? Sir, if you know something... look, we're working against the clock here. This, this could happen to Mulder. And until we know what it is we have to do everything to control it.

Skinner: There may be a vaccine.

Scully: Where?

Skinner: It doesn't come without a price.

Scully: This is about saving a man's life.

Skinner: Yes. It is.

---

Absalom: Brother... you aren't someone I expected to be... paying me a visit.

Doggett: How are they treating you?

Absalom: Treating me? Like a prophet.

Doggett: That's what I'm here about, your prophecies — these preachings of yours.

Absalom: Oh... you misread me, is that it?

Doggett: I want to know about these men and woman you say you would find left for dead.

Absalom: You found someone yourself. Left for dead, but who's not dead?

Doggett: Yes.

Absalom: You're here to receive the word... and yet you can't bring yourself to say my name. Say it.

Doggett: Absalom.

Absalom: I am the resurrection and the life. He who believeth in me... though he were dead, yet shall he live. Do you know the words?

Doggett: They're from the bible.

Absalom: What is the bible? Preaching... Prophecy... Misread.

Doggett: Look, I'm not here to debate theology. I'm here because somehow you healed these people and I want to know how you did it. I need your help.

Absalom: You ask for my help... But you refuse to believe in me.

---

Krycek: It's hard to believe, isn't it... that Mulder could ever possibly get out of that bed?

Skinner: I need the vaccine, Alex.

Krycek: Yeah? Time is wasting.

Skinner: What do I have to do?

Krycek: Oh, it's simple, really. Make sure Scully doesn't come to term.

Skinner: You're out of your mind.

Krycek: She can't have that baby.

Skinner: No. The answer is no.

Krycek: We all have a life in our hands. I have yours... you have Mulder's... and Scully has her unborn child. It's who's willing to sacrifice.

---

Doggett: Where are you going?

Scully: Look, I don't have time to waste debating our differences, Agent Doggett. I strongly believe that Agent Mulder is infected with a virus.

Doggett: A virus?

Scully: A virus that seems to keep the body just alive enough to take it through a transformation...

Doggett: Into — let me guess — an alien.

Scully: Agent Doggett, I don't have time to argue.

Doggett: I'm not arguing, and for what it's worth, that's what this guy that first found Mulder told me. This man that we put in prison — Absalom?

Scully: He told you this was a virus?

Doggett: No. He said the abductees were being returned and left for dead. That if he hadn't found them and done his hocus pocus they would've been resurrected as aliens. It was all part of some big alien take over of the world.

Scully: That's it.

Doggett: What's it?

Scully: How Billy Miles came back so perfectly. I stood there and watched his body go into seizure, just moments before this happened. On the monitor, there were two heartbeats, and I told the nurse that it was just a mechanical error.

Doggett: You think this kid has sloughed his skin and come back as an alien?

Scully: And it'll happen to Mulder if we don't stop it soon.

Doggett: Where are you going?

Scully: I need a surgical bay, a team of doctors. I have to keep Mulder's body stabilised in order to administer the vaccine.

Doggett: What vaccine?

Scully: The one I asked AD Skinner to get me.

---

Doggett: Assistant Director? Open up. It's John Doggett. [Skinner has removed all the life support from Mulder, Doggett kicks open the door] What the hell are you doing?

Skinner: You don't understand. [Doggett slams Skinner against the wall]

Doggett: You're killing him.

Skinner: I had no choice. He wanted me to kill Scully's baby.

Doggett: Who?

Skinner: Alex Krycek — for the vaccine. It's the only way he'd give it to me... but I couldn't trust him. I couldn't do that to her.

Doggett: Where is he?

---

Skinner: Agent Doggett. Agent Mulder's in the OR. Did you get the vaccine?

Doggett: Listen to me. You weren't wrong. He wasn't to be trusted.

---

Doggett: He's going to make it?

Scully: I don't know. I... I really don't know how we could've known.

Doggett: What?

Scully: That by keeping him on life support we were incubating the virus. We were hastening it along.

Doggett: How'd you figure it out?

Scully: When Skinner pulled Mulder off of the machines, his temperature dropped rapidly without affecting his vital signs.

Doggett: You mean Skinner saved him. What about the vaccine?

Scully: If we can stabilise him at this temperature we can give him courses of antivirals. I think it could work.

---

Deputy Director Kersh: John.

Doggett: Sir. Morning rush hour. I got here as quickly as I could.

Deputy Director Kersh: Missed the sunrise.

Doggett: I was with Agent Scully.

Deputy Director Kersh: I know. It's going to be awful crowded down in that X-Files office. Maybe you didn't hear me. I said you're on the wrong floor.

Doggett: Yes, sir.

---

Scully: Mulder... Hi.

Mulder: Who are you?

Scully: Oh, my god. Don't do that to me. Do you know...? Do you have any idea what you've been through?

Mulder: Only what I see in your face. Anybody miss me?