IMAGES FROM "WITHOUT"

TEASER
The camera shows a piece of the desert at night. A light from above hits it, and eventually a spaceship lands. It becomes invisible by the rippling force field. During this, there is a voice over by Scully:

We live in darkness of our own making. Blind to a habitant would, all but unseen by us. A world of beings traveling through time and space, imaginable to us only as flights of fancy. Who are these beings we dare to imagine but fear to accept? What dark work goes on inside their impossible machines, cloaked from us by invisible forces? If they know our secrets, why can’t we know theirs?

ACT ONE
Doggett tells Mulder to let Gibson go and that he doesn’t want to shoot him. Mulder lets go of Gibson, who then runs away from him.

Even though Doggett still has the gun trained on Mulder, Mulder starts to back up slowly away from him. He backs up until he falls off the edge of the cliff.

On the ground Mulder lies unresponsive with an obviously broken arm.

Doggett calls the other agents over to get help.

When Doggett, Scully, and Skinner get back, Mulder is gone. Scully asks where Mulder is, and Doggett tells her that he does not know. He tells her that Mulder backed off the cliff and somehow is gone.

SKINNER: Come on, he can’t be gone.
DOGGETT: Yeah, he can’t, but he is.

As they all look up at the cliff, Doggett tells them of freak accidents where people should have died, but miraculously didn’t (reminiscent of The Goldberg Variation). However, this is different. Doggett shows Skinner the point of impact and the tracks. Mulder was running.

Scully tells him that it wasn’t Mulder, even though she’s sure it looked like him and he had every reason to believe that it was.  He still disagrees with her.

SCULLY: I told you that I’ve seen things. Things that I can’t explain. Well, I have seen what looks like a man, transform into another man.
DOGGETT: What looks like a man, but who’s not a man?
SCULLY sighs
DOGGETT: So what is he?
SCULLY: You don’t wanna know.
SCULLY turns and starts to walk away
DOGGETT: If he’s not a man, what the hell is he?! Hey, don’t turn your back on me, I’m asking you a legitimate question.
SCULLY turns back
SCULLY: He’s alien. He’s a bounty hunter.
DOGGETT: Looking to collect a bounty on…?
SCULLY: On Gibson Praise, because he’s part alien. He’s a human anomaly.
DOGGETT: So this alien bounty hunter, he disguised himself as Mulder to come out her to grab the boy?
SCULLY: To take him back to his ship. Where we believe Mulder is.

Doggett tells Scully that she’s starting to remind him of Mulder. Doggett gets in his car and leaves.

Skinner tells her that if it is true, he could become any one of them. She tells him that she does think it’s true, and possible.

SCULLY: And wherever Mulder is right now, he better damn well be smiling’.

Scully turns and starts to walk away.

Outside the school, where all the students are standing, a van pulls up and Doggett gets out. He asks the agent if there was any sight of Mulder. He tells him that there wasn’t according to the people there. One girl looks at them strangely. Doggett says that Mulder has got to be there somewhere, and to search the school again.

Meanwhile, Mulder (the alien bounty hunter) is walking into a classroom. He stops and pops his arm back into place. He morphs into himself, and then, when he hears them coming, he morphs into the one teacher.

Doggett comes in to find the teacher and tells him that he had told everyone to clear out. The other agent comes in and asks if he found anything, but Doggett tells him no, and turns and walks out.

Outside, Skinner wants to know how Doggett got out there and how he know where they were going. Scully tells him that they are going to turn the place upside down looking for the wrong person. Skinner asks her what happened to Gibson. She doesn’t know, but she speculates that whatever happened to him, he’s long gone. Wherever he is, he is three steps ahead of them.

Skinner notices something and gets Scully to look. The girl from before gets on her bike and takes off. Suddenly Skinner tells her not to look, because they have eyeballs on them. He tells her to just start walking and he’ll be right behind her.

As a distraction, when an agent comes out, Skinner asks him if he can talk to him for a minute.

Scully follows the girl on foot until she finds her bike on the ground. She walks around and feels something under her feet. She looks down and sees a rope. When she pulls the rope, a trap door in the ground opens. She walks down the steps into the hiding place. Gibson and the girl, Thea, are there. Gibson tells her that she shouldn’t have come there. 

ACT TWO
She tells him that she wants to protect him, and that she knows he knows it’s the truth. He tells her that he knows that they took Mulder, and now they are after him. She tells him that the only reason they want to take him is because he’s a special boy, and because of what he is. Thea signs and tells him that she didn’t know Scully was following her. Gibson says that Thea knows about him, but she is the only one he told anything. She had said that the FBI was after him, and she is worried about him. Scully tells him that she should be worried. They don’t know who to trust now.

Gibson flinches. Scully looks down. Gibson’s leg is bloody. He fell when he was running away. Scully gets some wood to make him a splint and tells him that he needs help and she will be back for him. She tells him that she won’t let anything happen to him, but he tells her that she’s said that before.

Back outside the school, Doggett gets a call. It’s Kersh. He is angry and wants to know how he could lose Mulder in the middle of the desert. He tells him to do the job he put him out there to do.

Doggett sees Skinner smiling and asks him if he amuses him. He tells him know, but that he made sense to him -- how he found his way out there, and who led him to Gibson Praise.

DOGGETT: You think I was spying on you?
SKINNER: No, but I think our new Deputy Director was. You’re being made a pawn in a rigged game.
DOGGETT nods to SKINNER and they move a little bit away from everyone else
DOGGETT: All right, you painted me the picture, now put it in a frame.
SKINNER: All right. You got a good rep. Agent Doggett. You don’t compromise; you don’t quit. You’re a damn good FBI agent, best of the best. Lot of guys put you in the director’s chair one day. Which is why you’ve been set up to fail. There’s no amount of search and rescue, or rolling cordons, or eyes-in-the-sky that are gonna turn up Mulder. It’s just the wrong approach.
DOGGETT: It’s not a question of approach; it’s the only approach I got.
SKINNER: The only way you’re gonna find Mulder is to give into the truth, to listen to Scully. But even then, say you do find him, even then you lose. You put anything about aliens, or UFOs, or alien bounty hunters in your report, Kersh will ruin you.  I’m betting that was his plan.

Doggett yells to the agents to tell him if Scully is there. An agent picks up his radio and says that he needs someone who’s with Scully to put her on a radio.

At the school’s dorm Agent Landau looks around. The camera pans to show Scully. She has a very strange and angry look on her face. Agent Landau says that Scully is with him.

The agent on the other end of the radio wonders aloud, then, who the woman is who is walking up towards them. Skinner and Doggett turn and look as well.

Scully walks up and they all stare at her. Clueless, she asks, “What?” Doggett asks the agent to give him the radio. He confirms with the agent that he is with Scully. The agent tells him that she’s standing right across the room from him.

SCULLY: From who? From me?! Where?

Doggett asks him what room he is in, and he says that they’re in the bunkroom in the dorm house. Scully tells Doggett to tell him to hold her there.

Scully hears Doggett through the radio and turns and starts to walk away. The agent calls after her. She spins around and grabs him by the throat and lifts him into the air, trying to kill him.

They all rush over to the school to find Scully choking the agent. The real Scully runs after her and Doggett and the others follow. When she finally catches up to where the alien bounty hunter should be, he is gone. She screams at Doggett that he saw her.

Scully goes over to the fallen agent to look at his neck. He flinches away and tries to stop her from touching him. Scully tells Doggett that the man thinks it is her who hurt him. She asks Doggett how that is possible, but he doesn’t answer her.

Scully realizes that the alien bounty hunter is someone else now, but they don’t know who. The one agents hand is dripping blood from the other agent’s neck, but only Thea notices. She turns around and leaves the room.

Back in the spaceship, in a fuzzy image, Mulder is still strapped to the chair. His eyes open.

Suddenly Gibson wakes up from the dream, breathing heavy.

ACT THREE
An ambulance comes and takes Agent Landau away.

Scully walks away as Doggett watches her. She starts into the van, and Skinner calls to her. Paranoid, she looks at him, scared that he is the alien bounty hunter. She gets in and closes the door. She looks around for keys, trying to start the car.  Skinner dangles them outside the window and tells her to get out of the car. She does.

SCULLY: Who are you?!
SKINNER: Who am I?!
SCULLY pulls out her gun, then SKINNER pulls his
SCULLY: Drop your weapon and turn around!
SKINNER: I’m not gonna turn around.
SCULLY: Just do it! I know how it works. Kill shot to the back of the neck.
SKINNER: Scully, you’re pointing your weapon at a friend.
SCULLY: Turn around or I’m gonna assume that you’re not who you say you are.
SKINNER: Scully, it’s me! Skinner!
SCULLY doesn’t budge, so SKINNER drops lowers his gun and turns around
SKINNER: I can prove it. I know your secret, who else knows it?
SCULLY: Okay. Tell me.
SKINNER: *You* tell me. How do I know it’s you?
SKINNER quickly spins around and grabs SCULLY’S gun
SKINNER: I don’t like pointing guns at pregnant women, any more than I like them pointing guns at me.
SCULLY believes him finally
SKINNER: This has gone too far, Scully.
SCULLY: No, that’s what’s wrong her. It hasn’t gone far enough. I need those car keys.
SKINNER: And what to you think you’re gonna do?
SCULLY: Look, we are being hampered here, by the FBI, by John Doggett, by doubt, by our own mistrust. Whatever it is, it is working, as long as we let it.
SKINNER: You told me Mulder wouldn’t allow it. Wouldn’t let me ruin my career over this, over him. But what about you, Scully? I mean, my God, you’ve got even more at stake.
SCULLY (almost crying): I can’t take the chance that I’m never gonna see him again.
SKINNER: Mulder could just come walking out of the dark, we don’t know.
SCULLY: Look, I’ve got one last chance here. Waiting for us out there in the desert. Gibson Praise. It may just be who gets to him first.

Skinner tells Scully to get in the car, he’ll drive.

As they pull away, Thea comes out and watches them leave.

When they reach the hideaway, Gibson is not there. They find him just sitting on the ground. 

GIBSON: He’s here. 
SCULLY looks up at SKINNER
GIBSON: I hear him.
SCULLY looks up at SKINNER again
SCULLY: What are you talking about
SCULLY feels GIBSON’S forehead for a fever
GIBSON: Mulder. Somewhere out there.
SCULLY moves her hand back and looks up at SKINNER
SCULLY: He’s got a really bad fever. I think his leg might be infected.
SKINNER: All right, we gotta get you to the hospital, okay Buddy?
SKINNER goes to pick him up
GIBSON (to Scully): You’re so close now.

Skinner picks Gibson up as Scully looks on. He turns back around, and Scully tells him to take Gibson to the hospital. He questions what she’s going to do, but she doesn’t answer him. He understands and walks away with Gibson.

MacLAREN REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER
12:48 AM
Skinner rushes Gibson in the hospital, yelling that he has an emergency.

Gibson lays in the hospital bed with a blue cast on his right leg. Skinner watches him. Suddenly Gibson senses something and gasps, looking out the door. Skinner looks and no one is there. He does it again, and this time when Skinner looks it’s Thea (the alien bounty hunter). She walks in and closes the door.

Scully’s walking around in the desert and calling for Mulder. She suddenly sees a light in the sky that she thinks could possibly be the spaceship they are looking for. 

ACT FOUR
The light comes closer, only to be a helicopter.

SCULLY: For someone who claims he’s not following me, you sure have a knack.
DOGGETT: Hey, you’re where the action is.
SCULLY: What does that tell you? That I’m crazy or that I’m right?
SCULLY turns and walks away
DOGGETT: Well, wondering around in the dead of night? You call it.

Scully stops and turns back to Doggett. She tells him that he said he wanted to find Mulder, but he won’t do what it takes.  He’s afraid that she’s right. He tells her that he’s not afraid of anything, except that maybe Mulder’s got even her believing in this “crap” now. She tells her that he’s seen the crap for himself, and asks how he can explain what happened earlier.

DOGGETT: Let me ask you something, hypothetically. If you were to find him out here, or this ship, or this alien bounty hunter, what would you do then?
SCULLY: I know what Agent Mulder would do. He’d do whatever it took.

Doggett asks her if she means lying like she’s been lying to him, and like she didn’t tell him about the boy. She denies she ever saw the boy. He tells her that he knows Skinner took Gibson to the hospital. She asks him how he found that out. He doesn’t answer her. He says that he has men posted to protect Gibson. He tells her that when Mulder comes for Gibson his men will be there. Scully asks him if they followed Skinner. He doesn’t respond. She asks if they are in the hospital now. When he says that they are, she asks him how he knows that they are really *his* men.

The camera pans past the helicopter to show the force field. Past that is the spaceship with Mulder onboard screaming for Scully.

Doggett and Scully go into the hospital. The agent tells her that Gibson is fine with Skinner, and that the nurse has been checking in, around the clock. Doggett and Scully go into check. Scully pulls out her gun.

SCULLY (sarcastically): Hey, if something tries to rip your throat out, I got you covered.

When Scully and Doggett go into the room where they are supposed to be, they are gone.

Scully tries to find Gibson. Meanwhile, Doggett finds Skinner in a vent. He is unconscious, and his eyes are covered from infection from the alien bounty hunter’s toxic blood.

Scully finds Skinner (the alien bounty hunter) who tells her that he has Gibson. At first she’s not sure if she should trust him, but he shows her Gibson is there. Gibson shakes his head “no” at Scully. She tries to move away, but the alien bounty hunter catches her and throws her against the wall. The glass on the door shatters on top of her.

Scully shoots the alien bounty hunter in the back of the neck and he falls. He starts do melt into green goo.

Doggett comes in the room, and in a moment of humor, steps in the goo. He yells for someone to come help him. Scully is on the verge of tears. Doggett pulls her over and comforts her as she cries

Doggett gives Kersh his report on the events. Kersh assumes that the green goo is some kind of hazardous materials or chemicals. He tells him that that is undetermined. He doesn’t put exactly what happened in the report, but rather that it was unexplained. Kersh of course gets mad, but Doggett keeps his ground. Kersh tells him that it reads like science fiction.  Doggett asks him if he means that it reads like an X-File, and if that’s what he intended when he assigned him the case. Kersh says that he will ask the questions. He tells him not to come back until he has the answers.

Scully is laying in the hospital bed. Her face is all bruised. A get well card is dropped on her. It’s from Doggett. 

DOGGETT: My dad always said it’s not who wins or loses, it’s who takes the worst beatin’ that counts.
SCULLY: That’s supposed to cheer me up?
DOGGETT: I thought so.

He tells her that he never saw her opponent. She tells him that he never will. He says that what he doesn’t believe is how long they are keeping her there. She tells him that they just need to run some tests.

He then tells her that Skinner and Agent Landau are alive and will be all right. He tells her that Gibson is a ward of the state now, but he made sure he has special protections, as he knows she would have done. Scully asks him why he is there, and he says that he is keeping her up on the case. She says that that’s not his job, but he tells her that it now officially is. He has been assigned to the X-Files. He tells her that whatever they may differ on, he still will find Mulder.

Doggett leaves.

Scully leans her head back on the pillow, missing Mulder painfully.

Meanwhile, Mulder is still strapped down, but he is lying similar to Scully. The camera pans back to show the alien bounty hunter watching him. The camera pans around him to show that there are many alien bounty hunters watching him.

IMAGES FROM "WITHOUT"


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])*


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