IMAGES FROM "WITHIN" COMING SOON!

TEASER
Blurred images move across the screen. A fetus floats around in yellowish liquid. Connected to the fetus is the umbilical cord. The camera pans up from the cord to show that it’s coming out of Mulder’s mouth, as it had with Scully in “Fight the Future.”

Scully wakes up from the nightmare in the hospital.

ACT ONE
Scully stands in front of the mirror looking at herself, getting ready for work. It’s obvious she is upset.

Scully walks out of the elevator and to the X-Files office. When she gets there she finds agents going through Mulder’s stuff, looking for clues to help their manhunt.

Angrily, Scully goes to see Skinner, only to find out that it was not his idea and he knew nothing about the manhunt until just then.

SCULLY: We’re not gonna to find Mulder this way. You know that and I know that.
SKINNER: I told you last night I will find him. I’m gonna do that. Okay? Now I want you just to cool it. I don’t want you doing anything that could upset your pregnancy.
SCULLY: I don’t understand. You are the assistant director. Who’s going over your head on this?
SKINNER: Our brand new deputy director.

Skinner’s phone rings. The caller display shows that the call is from Kersh.

In his office, Kersh thanks them for cooperating on the manhunt.

SCULLY: With due respect, there aren’t two people better qualified to be directing this action, Sir.
KERSH: Right now you and AD Skinner are the two primary witnesses to Mulder’s disappearance. I want your statement taken ASAP.
SCULLY: You make us out to be suspects, Sir.
SKINNER: Taken by who?
KERSH: My task force leader on this, Special agent John Doggett.

He also tells them not to bring aliens or alien abductions into the investigation, or they’ll both be looking for new jobs.

After coming out of the office:

SKINNER: Look. I saw what I saw. I have to make a statement in there; I’m not going to tell them it didn’t happen.
SCULLY: But you heard Kersh. You don’t want the truth. You give them the truth and they’ll hang you with it.
SKINNER: Then they’ll hang me with a lie too. I’m not gonna sell Mulder out.
SCULLY: What good are you to Mulder, if you give them the power to ruin your career? We *will* find him.

Scully is called in for questioning. Unbeknownst to her, she sits down next to John Doggett. He gets up and comes back and offers her a cup of water. He tells her that it could be a long wait. She accepts it.

DOGGETT: Aren’t you his partner, Mulder?
SCULLY: Yes.
DOGGETT: I guess nobody’s beyond suspicion on this thing.
SCULLY: Why are they talking to you?
DOGGETT: Me? Oh, I knew Mulder back a bit. Been developing a working profile and character background.
SCULLY: I’d say they have all the character profiling they need on him.
DOGGETT: Certainly his reputation. I doubt we agents ever truly know each other, even our partners, not at the end of the day. Their real lives, their friends, girlfriends, deeply personal things, issues.
SCULLY: I think I know Mulder as much as anybody.
DOGGETT: Yeah, probably so. I always took the rumors with a grain of salt.
SCULLY: What rumors are those?
DOGGETT: Well, you know. Well, that, from the beginning he never felt a real trust with you. That you were ambitious.
SCULLY: Where’d that come from?
DOGGETT: There are women here at the bureau that he would confide in. I don’t know if you knew that or not.
SCULLY: No. When was this?
DOGGETT: I don’t know. It’s just talk. So, what do you think happened, to Mulder? What’s your theory?
SCULLY: What’s my theory? My theory is you don’t know Mulder at all. You never did.
SCULLY reaches over and flips over DOGGET’S ID.
SCULLY: Kersh’s task force leader. You might have just introduced yourself.
DOGGETT: Well, I was getting around to it.

Scully angrily stands up and throws her water in Doggett’s face. Skinner gives her a confused look.

Scully walks out and the camera zooms in on Doggett’s face, which is now dripping with water. The other agents are stunned.

At home, Scully investigates Doggett through the FBI database on her computer.

Scully suddenly gets sick and runs into the bathroom. She runs over and stoops at the toilet.

Scully walks over to the mirror and wipes off her face.

After emerging from the bathroom, she calls her mother, only to get the answering machine. She leaves a message saying that she really needs to talk to her. She is on the verge of tears.

Scully hears some clicks and realizes that her phone is being tapped. She glances out the window and sees Doggett below. She calls him on the phone and yells at him, wanting to know why he is spying on her. Still at the office, he has no idea what he is talking about. She clearly does not believe him.

After hanging up, Scully senses someone in her apartment. She sees someone and follows him down the hall. She ends up at the window and sees someone right outside, but it is only the landlord who tells her he is fixing the roof. She asks him if he saw the man. He tells her that he did, and that it was Mulder.

Scully goes back to her apartment, calling out for Mulder. No one is there. She finds out that her computer is missing.

ACT TWO
Scully goes over to Mulder’s apartment. Inside she sees that his computer is missing too.

She walks into his bedroom and sees his shirt on his bed. She curls up with it and falls asleep.

In either her dream, or reality, Mulder is being experimented on and tortured. His face is stretched out by needle-like things. Metal prongs go up his nose, and a drill goes into his mouth.

Skinner talks to the Lone Gunmen for help in finding Mulder. They show him maps and UFO charts that show the UFO activity in the Pacific Ocean, prior to Mulder’s abduction. Skinner wants to know where the spaceship is headed next. If they can find it, they might be able to find Mulder. The Lone Gunmen could not find that information from the data that they have.

Doggett goes to Kersh’s office to talk to him. Kersh spends some time talking about the airplanes he used to fly. Doggett asks him if he’s running the taskforce. Kersh says that he’s in charge. Doggett wants to know if there is anyone else involved, or if someone out there is taking orders from another office. Kersh tells him that he would know about it if there were. When Kersh asks what prompted the question, Doggett tells him it was his wits. Kersh then tells Doggett that he’s got a chance to shine and stand in the spotlight, and to show everyone he is an ace.

Doggett is in Mulder’s bedroom when Scully awakens.

SCULLY: What are you doing her?
SCULLY stands up
DOGGETT: I could ask you the same.
SCULLY: I came by to feed Mulder’s fish.
DOGGETT: And then you got tired and decided to take a nap.
SCULLY: You’ve got a way about you, Agent Doggett, that might have worked with the NYPD, but you’re talking to a fellow FBI agent now. I’d appreciated some respect.
DOGGETT: Respect like you showed me on the phone? Give a little, get a little, Agent Scully.
SCULLY: Who ambushed me with the phony chitchat about Mulder and then put a wire tap on my phone?
DOGGETT: That’s BS.
SCULLY: And now you’re followin’ me!
DOGGETT: I just came by to feed the fish.

Scully and Doggett walk out into the living room. Scully asks him what he wants on her and what he hopes to find. He tells her that he’s just trying to find Mulder. She tells him that he wouldn’t know where to look. Doggett says that it’s in the desk in the little drawer. She pulls the fish food out.

DOGGETT: I know the answer, Agent Scully.
SCULLY: I don’t even know the question.
DOGGETT: What happened to Mulder. I know what you’re gonna say or not, because you think I’m the big bad wolf. Do you really believe it?
SCULLY: You think by talking in circles I’m just gonna get dizzy and, and blurt it out, this so-called answer?
DOGGETT: That he was abducted by aliens?
SCULLY: You said it, I didn’t.
DOGGETT: I guess I just find it hard to swallow that a scientist, a serious person could buy that. Ever see an alien, Agent Scully?
SCULLY: You want me to go on record? I will go on record to say this: That I have seen things I cannot explain. I have observed phenomena that I cannot deny. And that as a scientist and a serious person, it is a badge of honor not to dismiss these things because someone thinks they’re BS.
DOGGETT: You think he was abducted.

Doggett tells Scully that he knows where Mulder has been going. He walks over to Mulder’s desk and pulls some papers out. He shows them to Scully. They are car rental receipts, for four consecutive weekends in May. They are all of approximately the same mileage. She doesn’t know what he was doing. He says that maybe she really didn’t know her partner.

Doggett gets a call that Mulder was seen at the FBI.

Skinner is questioned and asked why Mulder would have removed files from the bureau. Skinner says that Mulder is only after the truth, and would not do something like that just to get back at the bureau as they are implying.

Scully tells Doggett that Skinner is telling the truth. He tells her that he believes him.

Doggett tells Scully that someone used Mulder’s VISA to buy flowers as an automatic debit near a mortuary in Raleigh, North Carolina. Scully realizes that Mulder was going to Raleigh to visit his mother’s grave. Doggett says that that’s one reason.

Meanwhile, a headstone is brought in that has all the names of the members of Mulder’s family on it, including his own. Scully is very grief-stricken.

ACT THREE
Skinner, upon seeing the headstone, tells Scully that he doesn’t believe it.

Doggett comes over and ask Scully and Skinner if they knew Mulder had a medical condition. Skinner says he didn’t. He tells them that Mulder was hospitalized about a year ago with an undiagnosed brain condition and irregular brain activity. Scully tells him that it was in Mulder’s temporal lobe. Skinner tells Doggett that Mulder made a full recovery. Doggett says that maybe he didn’t. Skinner says that Mulder would have told them if it were true. Doggett gives Scully Mulder’s medical records. Scully says that the records show that Mulder is dying. It shows a clear record of his decline, and he had been going to see doctors about it. Again, Doggett asks how well they really knew Mulder.

DOGGETT: How far would Mulder go?
SCULLY: How far would he go for what?
DOGGETT: The truth. His truth. Whatever it was he was trying to prove. How bad did he need to prove it?
SCULLY: It was his whole life.

Skinner asks what Doggett is trying to say. He tells him that Mulder found himself in a place where no one wants to go. His life and work was being threatened. His search was in vain and he didn’t prove anything. He thinks that maybe Mulder faked his disappearance for a last chance to make it. Scully asks if Doggett thought that Mulder was there and was the one that broke in and stole the files. He tells her that he also broke into her apartment and to her computer, and his own as well. Skinner asks why he would do that, to prove it? Doggett says either that or he could be trying to cover it up, to remove doubt. Doggett goes on to say that he gets Mulder and he understands his obsession and why he would take such a leap. But how far would he go? Enough to fake his disappearance? Skinner stands up and starts yelling that he knows what he saw and he isn’t going to listen to him.

In a flashback scene Skinner sees the spaceship carrying Mulder fly away.

Scully asks Doggett not to put what he said in the report. He asks her what good it would do him, because it won’t help him find Mulder.

While walking away, Skinner says to Scully that that’s not good enough.

Skinner and Scully are at Lone Gunmen headquarters. They are showing Scully the maps. She thinks it’s a waste of time. The maps show the activity to be all over the southwestern states, but Mulder disappeared in the Pacific Northwest. Skinner tells her that that’s where Mulder will be, in the Arizona desert. It’s the only thing they have. Scully asks that even if it were true, where would they begin. Langly suggests that maybe they should go to whoever was going to be abducted next. Scully is silent and the Lone Gunmen tell her that they were just trying to help.

Scully suddenly realizes that Langly is right. She understands what is going on and thinks that it makes sense. She asks them why people refuse to believe in aliens and UFOs, after all the sightings and eyewitness accounts. Frohike tells her that it is because there is no real proof. She tells him that maybe the aliens are going around and removing all the evidence of their existence, before it becomes proof. She tells them that it’s not Mulder who’s been collecting the stuff, but them. They are looking to find what’s not on their computers or in the FBI files.

During this, a file is slipped under Doggett’s door. He picks it up and starts to read it.

Scully continues to say (partially in voice over, showing Doggett looking at the file) that they are looking to find the whereabouts of good, hard proof. That the proof exists in a person, a boy named Gibson Praise (Doggett finds the picture of Gibson).

ACT FOUR
Doggett hands pictures out of Gibson to the agents. He tells them some of what Mulder’s report said about the case, and that Mulder said Gibson could read people’s thoughts. Some of the agents laugh. He just tells them that Mulder may be looking for the boy, and if they find the boy they can find Mulder.

Doggett tells one of the agents to get the picture sent out to every channel and station as possible. He’s going to make Gibson famous.

Mulder is being tortured again. The camera now pans to show that Mulder’s wrists and ankles have been nailed to the chair/table he is on. Suddenly a buzzing saw comes at Mulder and starts to cut down his chest as he screams. Blood pours out.

Scully awakes from her nightmare, leaving everyone unaware of whether the previous scene was real or just a dream. Scully is in the car with Skinner, heading for Arizona.

Trying to find the way:

SKINNER: What’s out there?
SCULLY: According to this map, a whole lot of nothin’.

The camera shows the car moving down the road. It then pans to show helicopters in the sky. Doggett, while in the helicopter, is called on the radio by an agent, telling him that he knows were to find him. Gibson is at a deaf school in Flemingtown.

Skinner has stopped the car. He gets out to go into a gas station. Meanwhile, Scully is looking at the map when she notices something out the window. Across the desert the air ripples (the spaceship’s force field). Skinner comes back and tells Scully that there is a school twenty minutes away. They drive off.

One of the teachers at the school talk to Doggett on the phone and ask if it’s urgent enough to take Gibson away from his studies. He then tells Doggett that he will get Gibson.

The man takes Gibson to his office. A deaf girl nearby watches intently.

Doggett comes into the school trying to find Gibson. The teachers want to know what is going on, but he doesn’t tell them anything. He just runs to the teacher’s office to find Gibson. Gibson sees him through the window and takes off.

Mulder and Scully come into the school, asking the teacher about Gibson. He asks them who they are.

Doggett comes running back in and says that Gibson escaped through the window. Doggett asks Scully what she’s doing there, and then she asks him the same. He tells her that he’s trying to find Mulder.

Doggett comes running outside, telling the agents that the boy escaped and to find him.

Someone else finds Gibson first. Gibson yells for the man to let him go.

Doggett sees footsteps on the ground and follows them.

Finally Doggett catches up with the two of them, and points his gun at the man, telling him to let Gibson go.

The camera pans to show Mulder’s face.

TO BE CONTINUED

IMAGES FROM "WITHIN" COMING SOON!


Overall Rating : 8.5
*Shippy Rating: 7
*Note: Shippiness will ALWAYS be based on MULDER and SCULLY. The scale is based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, All Things being an 11.5, and Millennium being a 12, all above the scale])*


If you have any more information, spoilers, or questions for me, feel free to email me. If you give me a tip, I don't have to reveal my source, unless you want me too.