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Season Eight Episode Guide - Mulder has gone, Scully is pregnant and Doggett is sceptical.

Within
  Agent Doggett's on a manhunt, and Scully and Skinner are following the Lone Gunmen's leads...

Scully is having nightmares about Mulder - who is floating in fluid with tubes in his mouth. At FBI HQ, Mulder's desk is being cleared - but a manhunt has been launched to find him. In charge is the new Deputy Director, Alvin Kersh.

Kersh informs Skinner and Scully that Special Agent Doggett will take their statements. He does, but not without seriously upsetting Scully, who throws water in his face.

Back at her apartment, Scully uses her computer to run background checks on Doggett. An attack of morning sickness leads to her telephoning her mother - when she realises her phone is tapped. Realising she's under surveillance, she runs into the hall - where her landlord Mr Coeben tells her that he's just seen Mulder.

Meanwhile, Skinner visits the Lone Gunmen, checking on any UFO activity that could be connected to Mulder's disappearance. He also discovers someone has been using Mulder's pass to get into FBI HQ to take papers - and he's the main suspect.

Doggett is gathering evidence to track Mulder's whereabouts - he finds car rental receipts in Mulder's name for May, and Mulder's credit card was used two days previously to buy flowers in Raleigh, North Carolina - where Mulder's Mum is buried. But the Mulder family headstone has a new addition in 2000 - Fox Mulder!

More evidence amounts - according to the Lone Gunmen, there's been UFO activity in Arizona, but they're unwilling to believe that Mulder is half alien. Doggett has found that Mulder had a medical condition, when someone slips Gibson Praise's file under his door.

Doggett believes that to find Mulder, the FBI will have to find the psychic child prodigy, Gibson Praise, first. He's in a school for the hearing impaired in Flemingtown, Arizona, where the principal isolates him for safety. By the time the agents arrive, he's escaped via the window, and headed for a nearby quarry - in the company of another person.

The other person is Fox Mulder...

Without
  Gibson Praise goes missing again, and there's an Alien Bounty Hunter on the loose...

Fox Mulder and Gibson Praise, the psychic child prodigy, have been cornered at the edge of a quarry by Doggett. Suddenly, Fox jumps over the edge - but his body is gone when the Agents reach the bottom. Scully realises that it wasn't Mulder - it was a shapeshifting Alien Bounty Hunter. Now everyone has become a suspect.

Back at the school for the hearing impaired, the Bounty Hunter mimics the principal and Agent Crane in his search for Gibson. Scully and Skinner manage to give him the slip, and follow Gibson's friend, Thea, into the desert. She leads Scully to Gibson's hideout in an abandoned mine, where she sets his injured leg, and sets off to retrieve her car.

After explaining to Kersh that he's lost Mulder, Doggett is told by Skinner that he's being set up to fall. Then Agent Landau finds Scully in the school dorm... just as Scully walks in from the desert in front of Doggett. Landau gets attacked by 'Scully' - who morphs into Agent Crane just as Doggett and his men arrive.

Meanwhile, Gibson is having dreams - of Mulder suspended in fluid with tubes in his mouth.

Skinner and Scully drive back in to the desert - but only after a tense moment where both think the other is the Bounty Hunter. Gibson has disappeared from his fort, and is huddled in the desert, having seen Mulder. Skinner takes Gibson to hospital, where his friend Thea visits him, closing the door behind her.

Walking back through the desert looking for Mulder, Scully sees a light in the sky - it's a helicopter. Doggett has arrived to take her back to the hospital, meaning she doesn't discover the UFO nearby, where Mulder is being held.

Back at the hospital, an Agent assures Doggett and Scully that no-one has entered Gibson's room, but when they go in Gibson and Skinner have vanished. Scully leaves to search the hospital, whilst Doggett checks the ceiling space, where he finds Skinner, his face badly burnt. Meanwhile, Scully finds Skinner and Gibson hiding in an operating theatre. Gibson tries to warn her that something is wrong, but 'Skinner' grabs her. They fight, and Scully manages to shoot the Bounty Hunter in the neck just as Doggett arrives to help her.

Meanwhile, Mulder is still held prisoner in the UFO.

Patience
  A strange creature is killing people in a small town, but the history of the crimes reveals a missing person...

Burley, Idaho - an undertaker and his wife are killed by a strange bat-like creature. Reviewing the case, Scully notices that the bite marks on the bodies are human.

Scully and Doggett make contact with the local detective, Abbott, who shows them the crime scene. They see strange, webbed footprints, and discover two regurgitated human fingers in the attic. After performing autopsies on the victims, Scully concludes that the couple were killed by some kind of bat.

Doggett shows her a 1956 newspaper report about three hunters who shot and killed a bat-like creature - soon after the autopsy on the creature, the local coroner was disembowelled, and five more people killed in similar circumstances.

Back in the present, another elderly woman is killed. Investigating Scully and Abbott find scratch marks in her attic, as if someone, or something, has forced entry. Looking through the victim's photo album, Scully discovers that the woman's daughter, Ariel, was the burned body that had been pulled from the river the previous week, having been missing for forty years. Scully thinks there might be a connection with the 1956 killings.

Doggett interviews Swanny Swanson at the Manhattan, Montana Press Telegram offices. He recalls the shooting of the bat creature, and wonders if it could have had a mate. Back in Idaho, Abbott exhumes Ariel's body - which has been partly dug up by something already. Alone in the graveyard, he is killed by the bat monster.

Scully performs an autopsy on Ariel, discovering that she died of natural causes, and was burned after her death. All of the recent victims have had contact with the burnt corpse, which means a man called Myron Stefaniuk could be the next victim.

The Agents warn Myron, who confirms Doggett's hunch that his brother, Ernie Stefaniuk, was one of the hunters killed by the bat creature years before. Myron asks to be left in peace, but the suspicious Agents stake out his house. Late that night, they follow him to the river where he floats a crate out into the water. On the opposite shore, someone swaddled from head to foot collects the crate, but is surprised by Scully and Doggett in a boat.

The man, whose face is horribly disfigured by bite marks, turns out to be Ernie Stefaniuk, who has been living as a hermit on an island for forty-four years. The surrounding water has prevented the bat creature from seeking out his scent, which is also why he burnt the body of his wife Ariel - so the creature would not smell him on her.

Doggett heads back to find Myron, but is attacked by the creature and escapes by jumping into the river - both Scully and Doggett are in danger, as they now carry Ernie's scent. Back in the cabin, one of Ernie's alarms triggers - the creature is on the roof. Scully shoots it through the roof, and goes outside to find the body. The bat creature comes down the chimney to attack Ernie, but Scully and Doggett open fire - it flies off into the night.

Back at FBI HQ, Scully wonders if the creature will come after them - Doggett is convinced they shot it. As she leaves the office, Scully puts Mulder's name plate away in a drawer.

Roadrunners
  Scully is stranded in deepest Utah, where the townsfolk have an unusual attitude to hitchhikers...

Hank Gulatarski tries to hitch a ride on a bus in the Sevier Desert in Juab County, Utah. He's woken up when the passengers walk off in to the desert and beat a young, severely arthritic man to death with rocks. Then they turn on him.

Scully is called in to investigate by the local coroner. Her mobile has no signal, so she rings Doggett on a payphone to let him know where she is - he's annoyed she didn't ask him along, but agrees to research a file on a mucus-related murder.

Scully sets off in pursuit of a mysterious bus, but stops for petrol in a tiny town after losing it. The pump attendant fills her tank but up the road her car breaks down because the attendant has filled the car with water. Unable to phone from the petrol station, she tries Mr Milsap's boarding house - but his phone is dead. The only other entertainment is a group of people reading the Bible in some nearby shacks.

At the boarding house Milsap asks Scully to examine Hank - he has a wound on his spine, and a weird slug-creature under the skin on his back which Scully can't remove. Hank tells her about the killing of the arthritic man, and passes out. When he comes round, Scully tells him he's in danger, and could die - she goes looking for an escape vehicle. Hank tells Milsap and the bus driver that he's dying - they treat him with great reverence when he says 'another swap' may be required.

Back at base, Doggett is concerned that Scully missed her appointment with the Coroner and calls in Ciolino, the local sheriff. They examine pictures of murder victims with the same wound on their spines.

Scully finds the bus, but is attacked by the townspeople, who then crack open Hank's skull. taking out the slug, they hold it by Scully's back. Bound and helpless in the boarding house, she realises the slug is creeping towards her brain. The townspeople think she'll make a very suitable host...

Suspicious, Doggett arrives in town, calls for reinforcements and rescues Scully from the boarding house. They commandeer the bus, and Scully gets Doggett to cut out the slug with his switchblade. As the townspeople start attacking the bus, Doggett tosses away the slug and shoots it.

The town cult, it seems, believed the slug was the Second Coming of Christ. Doggett reprimands Scully for not inviting him along - she promises not to go solo again.

Invocation
  A boy mysteriously reappears after ten years - and he hasn't aged a day...

Billy Underwood disappeared from a playground under his pregnant mother's nose in 1990. Ten years later, his ten-year-old brother Josh leads his mum Lisa back to the same swing, where his brother has reappeared... but as if he'd never left. He's still just ten, and definitely the same boy.

Scully and Doggett are called to investigate. Doggett questions the boy, but can't get any information out of him, even when he starts playing tough. He examines the original case files, and discovers that a dark haired boy, Ronald Purnell, was involved with the disappearance, and has been in trouble since. He finds Ronald, who refuses to co-operate.

That night, Billy apparently stabs his brother. When his mother finds Josh, he is unhurt, but a knife protrudes from the mattress - it's covered in Billy's blood, and has a strange five-pointed star gouged in its handle. The local sheriff, Sanchez, uses a police psychic, Sharon Pearl, who had premonitions of the same symbol. She leads the police to a field, but they find no fresh evidence.

When Scully introduces the psychic to Billy, she has a seizure, and the same five-pointed symbol appears on her forehead. As Scully and Doggett talk over the incident, Doggett expresses his anger that the psychic mentioned the death of his son, Luke. Scully plays the tape of the seizure back at speed, to hear a child singing.

Ronald, whose mother Marcia has warned him about making trouble, has unearthed a small skeleton in the woods. His mother's boyfriend, Cal Jeppy, threatens to tell the FBI about it. Despite this, Ronald watches the Underwood house from his car. When Scully and Doggett investigate, Billy appears in the passenger seat. By the time they stop Ronnie from driving off, Billy has disappeared again, and Ronald is understandably upset.

Elsewhere, Billy's father Doug has stopped for petrol and Josh wanders off to a convoy of carnival vehicles. As he goes to pat a pony, Josh is grabbed from inside a trailer. The trailer bears the five-pointed symbol, and the words 'Cal's Pony Ridealong'.

When Scully and Doggett hear about Josh's disappearance, they interview Ronald again. He experiences memories of Billy's original abduction, including a hidden compartment in a horse trailer, and his attempt to free Billy. Doggett presses him for the name of Billy's abductor. The Agents rescue Billy from the compartment in the pony trailer, and Doggett chases Cal into the woods.

When Doggett catches Cal, he suddenly sees Billy in the distance. He follows him, finding the shallow grave, and Billy again disappears. It's Billy's skeleton, but Doggett refuses to believe...

Redrum
  A man gets a second chance to prove his innocence, but is punished anyway...

Martin Wells wakes up in a cell, with a freshly stitched wound on his face. He recognises Doggett, and as he is led to a van he sees another familiar face - Al Cawdrey, his father-in-law. Cawdrey shoots him, and as Martin dies, he sees the second hand of Scully's watch start to tick backwards.

Martin wakes up in jail with no sign of a gunshot wound. When Doggett and Scully visit him with evidence that proves that he murdered his wife, he has no idea what they are talking about. He is even more confused when he finds out that the day is Thursday, as his yesterday was Friday. He tells the Agents that he is innocent, but is more confused when footage from a hidden camera retrieved by his daughter's nanny shows him breaking into his own house.

Next morning, the wound on his face is gone, and his attorney Janet Wilson has no knowledge of the nanny-cam footage. The day is Wednesday - time is moving backwards for Martin. Later that day, he is attacked by a prisoner with a spider web tattoo, who slashes open his face. When telling Scully and Doggett that he's moving backwards in time, he remembers the identity of the killer - it's Cesar Ocampo, the man with the tattoo.

The next day, Martin wakes in Doggett's house - it's the day after the murder. They visit the crime scene, and retrieve the nanny cam footage - which shows no intruders. Martin realises that the nanny, Trina, knew where the camera was and could have told the killer. They visit Trina's house and Doggett arrests Ocampo, but Trina is too scared to testify.

It turns out that Martin helped sentence Ocampo's brother Hector to life, although there was evidence to exonerate him. Martin promises to review the case, but Hector has committed suicide - and there's now enough evidence to charge Martin with his wife's murder.

On the day of the murder, Martin warns Doggett of the impending crime - Doggett doesn't believe him. Even though it could result in a jail sentence, Martin admits to Hector Ocampo's mistrial.

At his apartment, he finds police have already searched it, but found no evidence of a crime. Alone, he hears the intruder at the front door - grabbing the kitchen knife he was meant to kill his wife with, he investigates. It's Vicky, his wife... but there's someone else letting themselves in, too. Hiding Vicky and calling the police, Martin faces Ocampo, who beats him up and makes to cut Vicky's throat with the same knife.

In the nick of time, Scully and Doggett burst in, shooting Ocampo. Scully's wristwatch starts ticking forward again. Martin Wells is eventually jailed for his unjust conviction of Hector Ocampo, but his wife is saved.

Via Negativa
  A drug-worshipping cult goes postal, and Scully's in hospital...

FBI Agents Jim Leeds and Angus Stedman are watching a house. Leeds falls asleep, and wakes to find the front door of the house open. The Agents investigate, to find a room full of bloody dead bodies, and an axe-wielding man with a third eye in the middle of his forehead.

Phoning Doggett from casualty, Scully tells him about the death of an agent watching a religious cult in Pittsburgh. She won't be joining him due to personal matters.

In Pittsburgh, Skinner fills in Doggett about the Ibogan Temple, a cult suspected of drug smuggling. The cult members all died from a single would to the forehead. Agent Leeds' body was found inside his car, but Stedman is still missing, along with the Cult leader, Anthony Tipet. Stedman doesn't stay missing for long - Doggett and Skinner find his body locked in his condo, with a fatal wound to the forehead.

Tipet, meanwhile, is looking for a pharmacist - who it seems has taken a razor to his forehead in his dark warehouse. His third eye open, Tipet attacks a tramp, trapping him and axing his forehead when the pavement turns to ooze.

Skinner briefs Kersh and other agents at the Bureau. Tipet was using hallucinogens to bring himself closer to God using the 'via negativa' - the dark path - but none of the victims had used drugs. News of the vagrant's murder leads to Andre Bormanis - a drug dealer associate of Tipet's whom he phoned from the crime scene. As Bormanis is arrested, he tries to take amphetamines. He is put in the cells.

In the jail, Doggett sees a set of bloody footprints. Tipet is floating three feet above the floor, his third eye visible. Looking down, Doggett sees he has Scully's severed head in his hands... Waking from the dream, Doggett realises he was asleep in the jail. He wonders if Bormanis was taking drugs to stay awake.

In his cell, Bormanis has fallen asleep, and is dreaming of being attacked by rats. Doggett finds his gnawed body.

Scully sends Doggett to the Lone Gunmen, who tell him about the mythology of the third eye. Doggett is convinced that Tipet is projecting himself into his victim's dreams. Returning to the warehouse with Skinner, they find Tipet pushing his head on to a circular saw. They rush him to hospital, where Doggett finds Scully's name on the register. With Tipet in a coma Kersh decides they've got their man, but Doggett is not satisfied - there is no explanation for the events outside Tipet's beliefs.

Next morning, Doggett sees a third eye on his forehead as he dresses for work - it vanishes, but he seeks Skinner for reassurance at the Bureau. He is afraid that he is asleep and, despite the coma, Tipet could still enter his dreams. Skinner tells him he's fine and sends him home, but Doggett has a powerful hallucination in which Tipet tells him Scully will die.

Doggett finds himself in Scully's apartment with a bloody axe in his hands. Rather than kill Scully in her sleep, he turns the axe on himself. Waking up, he finds Scully standing over his bed, and thanks her for saving his life. Scully tells him Tipet died in his sleep.

Surekill
  A killer with X ray vision is on the loose...

Worcester, Massachusetts: Carlton, an estate agent, leaves a frantic message on an answering machine. Rushing in to the local police station, he tells the police that someone is trying to kill him. They put him in a cell, and are surprised to watch his head explode against the door.

Scully and Doggett are called in by Captain Triguero to investigate. Carlton was shot with a 9mm bullet - that passed through the police station roof. But how did the killer see through the building to aim?

At AAA-1 Surekill Extermination, Tammi Payton is picking up the evening's messages - she erases Carlton's frantic message. When the boss, Dwight Cooper and his twin brother Randall arrive, they discuss the death - Randall killed Carlton because he was defrauding the company, but he can't trace the cash.

Scully and Doggett visit Carlton's work, finding invoices from the extermination company. In one room, the wall is full of bullet holes, as if someone were shooting through the wall.

Later, Dwight meets some drug dealers inside a derelict building, and shoots them... with his fingers. Randall was behind a wall, which is now full of bullet holes. Investigating the incident, Scully concludes the killer must have X ray vision - there have been several similar cases recently.

Visiting the Exterminators, Scully and Doggett show Dwight their evidence; the invoices they found in Carlton's office - although his eyesight is too poor to read them; some fabric found at the police station, that bears traces of a chemical used in extermination; the fact that Carlton's last call was to Dwight's office. Dwight is puzzled. Meanwhile, Tammi is at home, having bought a bus ticket to Montana - unaware that Randall is spying on her in the shower. The following morning she goes to work early, and makes for a cash box. Dwight and Randall catch her, just as Scully, Doggett and the police arrive. It transpires that the cash box is empty - which surprises Tammi.

Dwight, Randall and Tammi are taken in for questioning. The Agents suspect that Carlton was selling on drugs stolen from the dealers by Dwight, but can't figure out why Carlton was killed. Tammi had made eight late-night calls to Carlton in the past week - perhaps Randall murdered Carlton from jealousy?

Tammi approaches Randall - he removed the money and ledger from the cash box to protect her from Dwight. She's been skimming cash, but still needs Randall's help. She goes to retrieve the cash from the bank. Dwight is there before her, and forces her back to the AAA-1 offices at gunpoint.

She tells him that Carlton was blackmailing her, having found out about her defrauding the company. When Randall arrives, Dwight gives him the gun and tells him to shoot Tammi. Dwight leaves the room as Randall takes aim... and shoots through the wall, killing Dwight.

Randall is arrested, but back at the police station uses his powers to view computer screens through the walls - Tammi is now a wanted fugitive, and he no longer feels so alone.

Salvage
  An iron man is looking for revenge...

Nora Pearce's husband Ray has died - she tells his friend Curtis Delario that she thinks that exposure to chemical agents in the Gulf War was to blame. As Curtis drives home that night, he hits a man in the road - who totals his car, and then attacks him. It's Ray.

Doggett refuses to believe that a human being could have walked away from such a crash, causing so much damage to a car. Then Curtis Delario's body is found in a trashcan with five finger-shaped wounds punched through his skull, and Ray's fingerprints are found on the crashed car.

Meanwhile, Ray is in a halfway house removing metal fragments from his face. A woman called Larina Buttons tries to befriend him, but he is not interested.

Doggett interviews Ray's wife Nora and Harry Odell, the owner of the scrap yard where Ray and Curtis worked. There's no record of Ray's cremation, which is yet more evidence that Ray is alive - but Nora watched him die. The interview must have frightened Harry, as he immediately goes to the scrap yard. He shreds invoices from a company called Chambers Technologies.

When Harry is disturbed by Ray, he fires at him with a shotgun. Ray's arm is ripped off, but re-grows itself with a weird metallic skin. Despite the injury, Ray then kills Harry by driving his fingers through his skull.

Doggett visits Chambers Technologies to interview Dr. Puvogel. Puvogel tells him about research into smart metals - alloys that can rebuild themselves if damaged. Doggett asks about an employee who was implicated by the invoices - Dr. David Clifton. Puvogel tells him that Clifton left the company.

Back at the halfway house, Larina approaches Ray again - some of the residents have seen him covered in blood. Angrily, Ray tells her to leave him alone. She later finds a newspaper obituary for Ray, and contacts his widow Nora.

At the Chambers Labs, Ray is stalking Dr. Puvogel. He is trapped in a test chamber by Scully and Doggett, but tears his way out with his inhuman strength, escaping from the Agents. Doggett picks up the trail at the scrap yard, where he finds the body of man made of metal in a barrel. Puvogel admits the body is Dr. Clifton, who became ill whilst researching 'polymorphic regeneration'. He's puzzled as to why the barrel is there - it should have been disposed of at a secure facility - and it looks like Ray was contaminated by the poisonous metal.

Nora catches up with Ray at the halfway house. He explains that he's making the people that poisoned him pay. Nora then visits Chambers Labs, where Doggett catches her looking at files. He finds out about the halfway house. But as police storm it, Ray strangles Larina and breaks through a wall to escape. Dogget realises that Nora was looking for the name of the man responsible for Ray's condition.

Ray confronts Nora at their home - she's angry that he killed Larina in cold blood. Ray turns on his wife, but is interrupted by the police - again, he escapes. Nora gives them the name of the next victim - Owen Harris, an accountant at the scrap yard, who was storing the toxic barrels to save money.

Ray attacks Harris, determined to get revenge, but during the fight Ray realises that Harris has a wife and a young son. Some last vestige of his humanity makes Ray spare his life. Instead, Ray climbs into a car at the scrap yard, and waits for it to be put into the crusher.

Hugh Potocki is making his way through Sahar International airport in Mumbai, India. A beggar with no legs, sitting on a cart, approaches him - he�s disgusted. Later, in the toilets, he hears the noise of the beggars cart. He's pulled violently from underneath the cubicle door.

Back in the USA, Potocki is in a hotel, with the beggar's cart strapped to his luggage. As he sits on the bed, blood pools beneath him.

Investigating the incident, Scully and Doggett find a fingerprint in the blood in the hotel room. When Scully later performs an autopsy, she finds severe damage to the victim�s colon and rectal tissue - but was it caused by something going in, or out? Even stranger is the fact that Potocki must have died 24 hours earlier- in Bombay.

At Fairmont Elementary, Mrs Holt, the principal is interviewing Mr Burrard for the post of maintenance engineer. She sees him as an average white male, but he is in fact the Indian beggar. Elsewhere in the school, Trevor, a large seventh grader, is picking on Quinton, a weaker boy. Quinton�s father intervenes, and is watched by Burrard.

Doggett has discovered a similar case - Albert Brecht, a businessman, died of internal injury in Bombay three weeks earlier. His passport stated he weighed 205 pounds, but the Indian pathology report gives his weight at 238. Scully thinks that the difference could be due to an internal parasite.

Quinton, the weak schoolboy, has a nightmare of a beggar in his room - his father tells him it is a dream, but is later killed by the beggar.

Investigating the death, the Agents find similar palm prints to those in Potocki�s hotel - but this victim has no internal trauma. During the autopsy, a hand forces itself out of the man�s stomach - Scully draws her gun, but the creature escapes. Following blood trails to a hazchem store, she finds it empty� unbeknownst to her, the beggar is hiding there.

At Fairmont Elementary, Trevor sees fleeting hallucinations of the beggar every time he looks at Burrard. He later tells Quinton that he knows who killed his father.

Scully and Doggett visit Chuck Burks, one of Mulder�s sources, who shows them video of Indian Fakirs performing self-torture to gain enlightenment. One order of Fakirs - the siddhi mystics - can manipulate reality, making themselves invisible or very small. Further investigation reveals that the son of a siddhi mystic was killed in a toxic gas accident at an American chemical plant near the village of Vishi in India.

Meanwhile, Trevor�s mother sees her son floating face down in their swimming pool. When she dives in to rescue him, she instead finds the Indian beggar. After her corpse has been removed from the pool, Trevor tells Scully about the little man who has been following him.

The agents place Burrard under arrest, but he refuses to cooperate. Doggett tells Chuck Burks that Burrard is to be released due to lack of evidence, but Burks is cautious. Burks sets up a video camera -although Burrard appears to be in the cell, he doesn�t show up on camera.

At Fairmont Elementary, Quinton and Trevor join forces to ambush the janitor, dropping bottles of chemicals on to him. The man vanishes, but reappears to chase Quinton down a corridor. Quinton locks himself in a classroom, but the beggar materialises in there with him. Scully finds them, but sees Trevor in place of the Beggar. When Quinton insists that the other person in the room is not Trevor, she draws her gun - it�s a struggle to shoot what appears to be a child, but after firing she finds the body of the beggar.

Talking to Doggett later, Scully explains that as she fired, she understood what Mulder would have seen, and that it is important that she keeps an open mind in her work.

At an airport, the beggar targets his next victim...

The Gift
  Mulder is spotted, and a shamanistic mystery is uncovered...

A man armed with a gun enters a home, which has a symbol drawn in blood on the front door.Ignoring the owner, Paul Hangemuhl, and his wife, the man opens fire on a shadowy, prehistoric looking figure. The man flees the house - it�s Fox Mulder.

Dogget drives to Squamash, Pennsylvania, to investigate a sighting of Mulder. The previous spring, Mulder had questioned Marie Hangemuhl, as her sister hald told him Marie was planning to dissappear. Marie denied the claim, saying she was going to leave because of a fight with her husband, but Mulder believed she was escaping something coming to the house.

Doggett is taken to the Hangemuhls by Sherrif Frey. Dogget notes a dialysis machine in the house - Marie has been on a waiting list for two years with kidney failure. He also notices three plastered-over bullet holes in the wall.

Dogget later checks Mulder�s appartment, finding a gun under his sink - it�s missing three rounds. Lab tests find dried blood on the muzzle: perhaps Mulder killed someone at the Hangenmuhl�s, falsified the reports and fled? Skinner assures Doggett that he witnessed Mulder�s abduction.

Paul Hangemuhl and Sherriff Frey exhume a coffin. They then go to a ramshackle house, where they accuse the woman inside of lying. A creature, the same shadowy figure seen at the start of the show, bursts from the house, and is caught and caged by the sherriff�s men. Later, they release it and allow it to attack and devour Marie.

Doggett and Skinner approach Frey about a death certificate from the previous spring - Frey says it was a transient, but they are suspicious. Going to the graveyard, they find the open grave, with a small tunnel leading from it. The symbol from the Hangemuhls' front door is drawn out in stones nearby - the Lone Gunmen later tell the agents that it is a Native American shamanic symbol, which summons a �soul eater� to consume illnesses.

Elswhere, in a cellar, the creaure regurgitates a strange substance which assumes human form. Remembering that Marie was sick, Doggett visits the rustic woman in the ramshackle house. Hearing a weird noise, he investigates the cellar, to find a regurgitaed human figure - it�s Marie, and she is alive.

Having taken Marie to hospital, Dogget finds out that her kidneys are cured. The rustic woman explains that the creature, a soul eater, is suffering from years of eating other�s illnesses. Doggett realises that Mulder must have sought the creature to cure his brain disorder, but had tried to put the creature out of its misery when he saw how much it was suffering. The locals buried the creature, but it didn�t die, so the rustic woman sheltered it.

Doggett takes the creature away in his car, but the Sherriff and the townspeople shoot him as he tries to leave, and the creature escapes in the dark. Doggett�s body is buried, but the creature digs it up and eats him. Awakening in a cellar covered in slime, Doggett realises that the creature has sacrificed its own life to bring his back.

Medusa
  The agents race against the clock to find a subway killer...

An undercover transit office is tracking a fare evader on the Boston Subway. The officer gets in to an empty carriage, having told his colleagues about the evader through a hidden microphone. The connecting door between carriages opens, and the evader enters. As the officer reaches for his gun the train stops suddenly, losing power. White light fills the carriage, the officer cries out, and the evader runs off through the tunnel. When the officer's body is found, it is missing hunks of flesh.

Deputy chief Karras and Lieutenant Bianco of the Boston Transit Police meet Scully and Doggett - and tell the agents they have eleven hours before the next rush hour to solve the case. The agents are piqued, but Bianco insists no chemical or biological agents were found, so the case is just a single cop killer.

The group is joined by a pathologist, Dr Hellura Lyle, and Steve Melnick, who supervised the building of the tunnel four years previously. Scully decides to monitor the investigation by fiber optic link from the control room, and Doggett sets off into the tunnel with Melnick, Lyle and Bianco.

Melnick cries out in pain - he�s been burnt on the neck. Lyle takes samples of water from the tunnel, in case there is a contaminated seepage - Scully analyses it to find it is just seawater. The group see a running figure, and follow to a fork in the tunnel, where Doggett decides to invesigate the abandoned branch. Suddenly a charging figure collides with Doggett - it�s the fare evader, but now his body is decaying on the tunnel floor.

The party finds three plastic-wrapped corpses nearby, but Lyle sees another running figure. Despite Scully's orders to leave the corpses, they lose the figure - then Melnick screams as a strange sparkling light tears chunks of flesh from his arms. Dogget douses him with water, neutralising the phenomenon, and heads off with Bianco to find the figure. Turning off his torch, Doggett notices that Bianco is luminescing. Bianco tries to run off, so Doggett pulls his gun and orders him to drop his weapon. Bianco does, but attacks Doggett.

A 'hazmed' team rescue Lyle and Melnick from the tunnel, but Scully notices a second team removing the wrapped corpses. Karras must have known the bodies were there all along. Kai Bowe, a marine biologist, approaches Scully with information about a medusa - a jellyfish like sea creature. The organic composition fooled the analysis of the seawater samples.

Dogget regains conciousness to find he is glowing, too. He tells Scully that Bianco must be found to stop the pathogen spreading, but Karras has reopened the subway to commuters. Doggett finds Bianco and tries to carry him to safety, but encounters a small urchin-like boy. He isn�t glowing - his sweat doesn't contain the substance which has been acting as a chemical-electrical conductor in the case of adults.

Doggett finds a leaking crack in the ceiling, but a train is coming with more people who could be infected. He shorts out the third rail with his assault rifle - electicity arcs through the tunnel as the train passes. As the tunnel darkens again, Doggett realises he is no longer glowing.

The organism is destroyed by the electric arc, which means that Karras can�t be prosecuted - the evidence is gone.

Per Manum
  Scully's fears about her pregnancy may not be unfounded...

Kathy McCready�s labour has run in to complications, and an emergency C-section is necessary. As her husband Duffy scrubs up, the doors are locked, and the attending Dr. Lev delivers an alien baby.

Later, Doggett introduces Scully to Duffy Haskell, who explains that his multiple-abductee wife was murdered by doctors after giving birth to an alien. Furthermore, his wife had contracted cancer after being impregnated by aliens, but was cured in a further alien procedure. Duffy gives them a file from Zeus Genetics, and an ultrasound proving his story.

After he leaves, Doggett points out that the case is similar to Scully's - except for the pregnancy, as he doesn�t know that Scully is expecting. Scully is angry he�s been reading her file.

Scully investigates Zeus Genetics, a medical clinic. She overhears a pregnant woman, Mrs Hendershot, telling Dr Lev that she no longer wants to be in his care. Fearing discovery, Scully ducks into a store room, to find it full of bottled alien foetuses.

Flashback: Mulder is telling Scully that she is barren because her ova were removed and stored in a government lab. Mulder found them and had them analysed, but they aren�t viable - Scully wants a second opinion. She consults her doctor, Dr. Parenti, who tells her that her ova may be viable, but she�ll need a donor - Mulder volunteers.

Back in the present, Scully phones Dr. Parenti, asking him to compare Kath McReady's ultrasound scans with her own. He is dissecting Kath's alien foetus.Visiting Parenti later, he reassures her that the scans are normal. As she leaves, she sees Parenti and Dr. Lev talking.

Skinner and Doggett confront Duffy about threatening letters he has been sending Mulder and Dr. Lev. He will be labelled as dangerous if he persists... but it seems that Duffy is actually working with Dr. Lev, who is worried that the FBI are investigating their story.

Mrs. Hendershot visits Scully to warn her that their babies are in danger.

Scully, Doggett and Skinner meet, and Skinner tells Doggett that Scully has requested a leave of absence. After Doggett leaves, Skinner begs the uncooperative Scully to tell Doggett that she is pregnant.

Scully and Mrs Hendershot visit Dr. Miryum at the Walden-Freeman Army research hospital. The doctor runs an ultrasound, which is perfectly normal - but Scully sees a video with another woman's name being played into the ultrasound machine... She is being deliberately misled. Mrs. Hendershot tells her they must leave immediately.

Doggett gets another Agent, Farah, to run a check on Duffy's fingerprints. They belong to David Haskell, who died in 1970. Doggett approaches Knowle Rohrer to find out Duffy's real identity. He is promised information, but suspects that Rohrer may be CIA. He tells Skinner of his fears - Skinner tells him to find Scully at the military hospital.

As Scully and Mrs. Hendershot sneak out of the military hospital, they are confronted by Rohrer and some marines, who say Doggett has sent them to rescue her. They're driven away, but Mrs. Hendershot goes in to labour. They separate the women, and sedate Scully. When Scully comes round, Doggett tells her that Mrs. Hendershot's baby was normal. Scully is convinced the babies were switched, but Doggett doesn't believe her - the ultrasound tape was being recorded over.

In flashback, we see Scully telling Mulder that she hasn't conceived with his sperm. In the present, Mrs. Hendershot's alien baby is being observed by Dr. Parenti and Duffy Haskell...

This is Not Happening
  Abductees are being returned - and mysteriously healed...

Richie Szalay is tracking a UFO in Helena, Montana. As he watches, it dumps a naked female figure, and flies off.

The woman is Teresa Hoese, who was abducted the night before Mulder disappeared. Skinner, Doggett and Scully visit Teresa in hospital - she's very ill. Later, in a motel, they question Richie Szalay. His friend Gary was abducted just before Mulder, and Richie decided to investigate the UFO reports in Montana. Doggett has a report that fresh footprints were found where Hoese was dropped - but the prints were from a popular trainer, making Doggett skeptical about Richie's claims to alien sightings.

Scully dreams of Mulder - dead in the UFO. Meanwhile, Jeremiah Smith has assumed the form of Doctor Desai and arranged for Teresa Hoese to be transferred.

Having learnt of Hoese's dissappearance, Doggett calls on Agent Reyes. Reye's specialty is ritualistic crime, and she thinks Mulder may have joined a UFO cult. Perhaps he's waiting to be transported to the mothership, like the Heaven's Gate cultists? Doggett thinks they may find Mulder if they can find the cult leader. Scully is angry at their suggestions.

In a derelict compound, Jeremiah Smith cures Hoese of her injuries, watched by a man called Absalom.

Back at the Montana Hospital, Reyes examines Hoese's X-Rays. When she looks for metallic nasal implants, Scully is amazed - she thought she was a disbeleiver. Reyes likes to keep an open mind, but is sensitive to the energies of the universe and sometimes gets 'feelings' about cases.

Later, Reyes car stalls as she drives. A UFO appears, dropping two more figures. Smith and Absalom take one of the bodies, but the other is Gary - Richie's friend. Reyes gets the number plate of the van used to kidnap the abductee - it's registered to Travis Clayton Moberly, better known as Absalom, the leader of a doomsday cult.

The FBI storm the cult's compound, and arrest Absalom - but Jeremiah Smith escapes. Absalom tells Scullly and Doggett that he has been saving abductees that are deposited on earth - Hoese's recovery supports his story. Examining video of the compound raid, Scully, Reyes and Doggett watch Smith step in to a doorway, then transform into Doggett. Doggett is stunned, and the agents realise that Smith is still in the compound.

Scully identifies Jeremiah Smith by his trainers, and tells him she knows who he is. When she is distracted, he changes from the disguise of a cult follower into his own form. Doggett comes in to tell her they've found Mulder's body in the woods.

Scully recovers Mulder, and races back to the compound hoping that Smith can cure him - but a beam of light from the sky shines into the room where he is being held, and when she enters the room, he is gone.

Deadalive
  Mulder is dead. But he might not be gone...

Three months after Scully, Doggett, Skinner and Kersh gathered for Mulder's funeral, Doggett is told that he is being transferred from the X Files. If he goes, the X Files will close, as Scully is about to go on maternity leave.

Elsewhere, a fishing trawler catches a body in it's nets. In the county morgue, Dr. Orovetz discovers that the decayed body is still alive. Fingerprints reveal it to be Billy Miles, the teenage abductee who disappeared at the same time as Mulder. Fearing Mulder may still be alive, Skinner gets his body exhumed. At a hospital, Dr. Lim explains that although Mulder shows signs of life, his body is decomposed. Scully places her head on Mulder's putrefied chest and cries. Later, in Billy Miles's room, she notices that he seems to have two heartbeats.

Kersh tells Skinner to stop the Mulder investigation.

Skinner is walking down a hallway, when the veins in his neck bulge making him stumble. Krycek is triggering the attacks with a Palm Pilot. Krycek tells him he has a vaccine that will save Mulder - he'll give it to Skinner if he ensures Scully doesn't have her baby.

Billy regains consciousness. He stands under a hospital shower, and his decayed flesh sloughs away, revealing a perfectly normal body beneath. He tells Scully and Doggett that aliens are trying to save mankind. Scully has lab reports - Billy has literally become a new person. Skinner tells her that there is a vaccine, but not about Krycek's demand.

Talking to Doggett later, Scully tells him that a virus is keeping the abductees alive long enough to make the transformation like Billy. Doggett tells her that he visited Absalom, who believes that the abductees are being resurrected as aliens in order to take over the world. Perhaps the transformation explains the double heartbeat? Scully asks Doggett to find Skinner and get the vaccine.

Skinner is pulling out Mulder's life support - after a scuffle, he explains that he was trying to kill Mulder because of Krycek's demand about Scully's child. Doggett catches up with Krycek in the hospital car park, where Krycek tries to run him down. After a dramatic scuffle, Krycek smashes the vial of vaccine.

Returning to the hospital, Doggett finds that Mulder has been operated on. Scully explains that the life support equipment was incubating the virus - stabilising him might let them reverse his condition. On regaining consciousness, Mulder asks if anyone missed him. Scully cries.

Three Words
  Census data may reveal the truth - if Mulder can get to it...

Howard Salt, a US Census worker, breaks in to the White House grounds to warn that aliens are taking over America. As he is shot by a guard, Salt hands him a CD labelled 'Fight the Future'.

Scully has requested that Mulder be re-assigned to the X Files, as he is now free of viruses. Kersh meets with Skinner and Doggett, saying he wanted to speak to them before denying the request - angering Doggett, who must tell Mulder. Skinner later tells Mulder that Kersh wants to punish him, and will keep the X Files open with Doggett at the helm.

Absalom, now in gaol, makes an escape bid whilst part of a chain gang. A passing train allows him to outrun his guards. Armed, he surprises Doggett in his apartment.

Skinner, Scully and Mulder investigate Absalom's escape. Looking at a photograph of Absalom, Mulder notices Howard Salt in the background. Skinner realises he's right, and Mulder doubts that Doggett would have spotted the connection. Later, in an evidence room, Mulder seizes the hard-drive from Howard Salt's laptop - it is full of encrypted files.

Absalom tapes a gun to Doggett's back, the barrel pointing at his head. He takes Doggett to an information processing complex, where he wants to view US Census data for proof of alien infiltration. The pair are attacked by a SWAT team, and Absalom is killed.

Arriving at the complex, Mulder accuses Doggett of covering up the truth and helping to kill Absalom. Doggett is dumbstruck - the bullet that killed Mulder nearly hit him.

The lone Gunmen decrypt Howard Salt's data - it's from a government data bank. However, after the White House break-in, new firewalls have been installed - to access more data, pass codes will be needed. Doggett meets Knowle Rohrer, who gives him the pass code - Fight the Future. Doggett passes the phrase on to Scully.

Later, Skinner tells Doggett that the passcode let Mulder break in to a database of people whose genetic profile makes them abduction targets. Making his way to the complex, Doggett tells Scully that he may have inadvertently set up Mulder.

Mulder has infiltrated the complex with help from the Lone gunmen. As he accesses a computer, Doggett arrives, and shoots his way into the locked room. Mulder handcuffs himself to the desk as Doggett confronts him, but Scully sends word that a SWAT team are on their way. Doggett tells Mulder that they've been set up, and will be killed by the SWAT team. Langly confirms this - and tells them that the data that Mulder had emailed out has been caught in a data trap and will never reach the press. They escape through a ventilation shaft as the SWAT team break in.

Later, Doggett meets Knowle Rohrer again, and threatens to expose him unless he tells him everything he knows. Rohrer says that his is a minor player, and Doggett leaves. Rohrer stoops to take a drink, and shows a strange, reptilian vertebra beneath his skin...

Empedocles
  A burning man could be connected to Doggett's son...

In a New Orleans office, Gary Garber informs his employee JebDukes that he has been sacked. Stunned, Jeb walks outside, and sees a car being chased by a police cruiser speed into a collision with a four-wheel-drive and burst into flames. A Burning Man calmly steps out of the car and walks right into Jeb�s body, suddenly disappearing, as if having been absorbed into him.

Later Jeb returns to the office with a handgun and kills Garber and personnel officer Roberta Toews.

Agent Monica Reyes goes to New Orleans to assist with the investigation. Her cheery mood evaporates when a vision of Toews' corpse, now charcoal-like in appearance, fills her mind. Meanwhile, Mulder rushes Scully to the hospital after she suddenly doubles-over in pain.

Reyes asks Mulder for his help with the case, explaining that she is reluctant to ask Doggett because the case involves him. They meet and Reyes gives Mulder two files pertaining to the death of Doggett�s son. Reyes explains that the only clue about the killer was a vision of the little boy�s body turned to ash she experienced, like the vision of Toews� charcoal-like corpse.

At his motel room, Jeb begins tearing at his skin, revealing what looks like lava inside his head.

Then, while standing in Scully's hospital room, Doggett experiences a flashback of the discovery of his son's body in a wooded area. When he realizes Mulder is investigating his son's murder he erupts in anger. Mulder and Reyes explain that the man burned in the car crash outside Jeb's office building was a man named Bob Harvey, a prime suspect in the slaying of Doggett's son but Doggett insists there is no connection.

We see a stranded woman ask Jeb for help with a flat tyre.

Reyes discusses the theory that Bob Harvey is related to the Jeb Dukes case with Mulder, but he sees no similarities, despite Reyes' contention that life is full of patterns people are incapable of comprehending.

Later, Jeb drives away in the stranded woman's car, blood spattered on his face. When Police discover the body of the stranded woman, Reyes believes it is tied to Jeb Dukes. Doggett is summoned to the scene, which is identical to a vision he experienced earlier. He denies having any visions, but Reyes does not believe him.

Back at the hospital, Scully tells Mulder that she suffered a partial abruption.

Face still spattered with blood, Jeb drives to his sister, Katha Dukes� house. Katha contacts the FBI looking for Doggett, but does not leave a message. Reyes concludes that Jeb is in Katha�s house.

When the agents arrive at the house, Jeb is upstairs with Katha's daughter, Mia. Jeb grows enraged on seeing Reyes, and grabs the little girl, pulling out a gun. Doggett draws his weapon and demands Mia's release but puts the gun down and tries to talk on realizing Jeb will hurt Mia.

Suddenly,a shot rings out and Jeb falls to the ground - he is rushed to hospital, where Agent Doggett experiences another vision. This time he sees his son's body, seemingly formed of charcoal-ash, just like in Agent Reyes' vision.

Monitor alarms sound and doctors rush to Jeb's side, but are unable to save him. Katha, nearby, suddenly sucks in a shallow breath and shudders. Possessed by the evil from Jeb�s body, she picks up an oxygen tank and strikes Reyes, then grabs hold of Reyes�gun.

Doggett rushes in and takes the weapon from her hands. Katha is placed inside a padded room.

Later, Mulder gives Scully a childhood keepsake, a small cloth doll, as a gift.

Vienen
  There's a murder on an oil rig... but is the oil what it seems?

Ed Dell, the communications officer of the Galpex-Orpheus oil rig is stabbed by a crewman, Simon De La Cruz. At the same time, the television in the rig's mess hall dies. Bo Taylor, the crew chief, investigates the communication shack to discover Ed Dell's body, which has something moving beneath the skin. Simon tries to escape, but Bo knocks him down - when his body starts to glow.

Mulder visits Doggett to tell him about the murder - the victim had 90% burns on his body which seem to be radiation burns, not caused by an explosion as the oil company claims. Mulder thinks it may be due to black oil.

Mulder and Doggett meet Mr. Ortega, the Galpex Petroleum VP in Kersh's office. Galpex have found a huge oil reserve in the Gulf of Mexico, which Ortega thinks Mexico may claim. Kersh sends Doggett to investigate, but when he arrives, Mulder is there before him. They meet Bo Taylor, who claims Simon went beserk and tried to blow up the rig, killing Ed Dell. Scully, however, finds Black Oil in his skull during an autopsy - but it's dead, as if irradiated.

On the rig, Yuri, a technician, tries to fix the rig's radio but is attacked by Bo and spattered with Black Oil. Yet when Scully speaks to Yuri he seems unaffected. Scully tells Mulder about Simon's oil infection, and Mulder urges her to find a way of fighting the infection.

Doggett and Mulder quarantine the rig, but one crewman is missing - Simon's friend Diego Garza. Ortega the VP threatens to change the crew unless the agents can proove the infection exists. Doggett and Mulder search for Diego, who is a mestizo like Simon. Perhaps he saw something that has sent him into hiding?

An alarm sounds - the communications shack is on fire. As the agents tackle the fire, Diego attacks Doggett, knocking him out. Regaining consciousness, he finds Diego cutting his arm to check for black oil. Despite his limited Spanish, Doggett realises that Diego set the fire because 'they're coming'.

Meanwhile, Kersh tells Scully that he is lifting the quarantine, against her advice. Scully realises that Simon is a Huecha Indian, and possibly immune to the Black Oil. Whilst the virus didn't kill him, radiation burns did.

Simon lets Doggett leave. Doggett finds Bo, tells him that Diego is alive, and is attacked. Just as he is about to be infected with Black Oil, Mulder helps him overpower his attacker. The agents barricade themsleves in the communications shack, and try to relay a message, whilst the rig crew surround them.

Scully gets though to the rig, and tells Doggett and Mulder that the new crew are on their way by helicopter - Kersh has broken the quarantine. Mulder destroys the radio - so the rig workers can't contact other aliens. The rig workers stop their attack.

Making their way outside, Doggett goes to rescue Diego - finding him burnt in the bowels of the oil rig. He rejoins Mulder, and they head for the production deck. Pipes start bursting, and fire breaks out as the helicopter arrives. Unable to land, the pilot tells the agents to jump. As they hit the water, the rig explodes.

Back in the bureau, Doggett tells Mulder that Kersh blames him for the rig disaster, and has thrown Mulder out of the FBI.

Alone
  Doggett has a new partner... and a deadly reptile problem.

In Ellicott, New York, Arlen Sacks is killed by a strange creature, which then attacks his son Gary by spraying venom in his face.

At FBI headquarters, Scully packs up her belongings. Amongst the many keepsakes is a medallion commemorating the Apollo 11 space flight. Scully hands the medallion to Doggett, explaining that it symbolises teamwork.

A short time later, Special Agent Leyla Harrison approaches Doggett and tells him that she is his new partner. They are to investigate a murder in upstate New York. She has been assigned as Doggett's new partner.

They make their way to the Sacks' house, where they search for clues, finding some slime which is sent to an FBI lab for analysis. Harrison explains that she processed Mulder and Scully's travel expenses, while working in the accounting department and as a result has an intimate knowledge of previous X Files cases.

Doggett follows a wooded trail away from the Sacks' home to a mansion. He makes his way inside where, unbeknownst to him, the strange creature is clinging to a wall, observing. Sensing something is amiss, Doggett pulls out his gun and instructs Harrison to stand by the door while he flushes the creature out.

While standing near the door, she hears a noise directly above her and opens fire. Doggett rushes onto the front lawn, where he falls through a trap door.

FBI agents descend upon the area and begin the search for Doggett, who has meanwhile regained consciousness in catacombs below the mansion.

From an autopsy, Scully discovers that Arlen was blinded by a kind of reptile venom. Back in the catacombs, the creature sprays venom in Doggett's eyes, blinding him. Shortly afterwards, Doggett makes contact with Agent Harrison, also blinded. Nearby is a very sick Gary Sacks. Realizing that Gary needs medical attention, Doggett attempts to scale the catacomb walls.

Mulder, meanwhile, searches the area around the mansion for clues and encounters the owner, Herman Stites, who identifies himself as a biologist. Below, Doggett reaches the drain grate and he calls for help. Hearing, Stites stands on his fingers until he loses his grip.

Mulder tells Scully he found the Apollo medallion near Stites' estate, and is convinced Doggett is somewhere nearby. A lab report indicating that the venom found near the creature's victims is unnatural prompts Scully to do some research on Stites. Later Scully phones Mulder to say that Stites is a crypto-biologist specializing in reptile genetics.

Mulder spots the creature and chases it to the mansion where it climbs up to a second floor landing. Mulder bangs on the front door, demanding that Stites let him inside. The creature makes its way through the house, transforming into Stites, who opens the front door and listens as Mulder warns him about protecting the creature.

Stites leads Mulder to the catacombs, where Harrison and Doggett are still trapped, and locks him in. The creature reappears, and Mulder begs the still-blinded Doggett to open fire. Doggett hesitates,then shoots.The creature falls to the ground and transforms into Herman Stites.

The agents visit Agent Harrison in her hospital room... and present her with the Apollo medallion.

Essence
  Billy Miles is killing... and Scully is in danger.

Scully's mother throws Scully a birthday shower, and hires her a nanny, Lizzy Gill. Scully isn't too happy, but promises to think about hiring a nurse.

Billy Miles confronts Dr Lev in Zeus Genetics. On Saturday morning, Mulder visits Doggett to tell him that Zeus Genetics has burnt down. The debris is searched - Dr. Lev is missing, and Scully's paediatrician Dr. Parenti turns out to be co-founder. Doggett and Mulder confront Parenti about his work. Dental remains in the burnt-out lab are identified as belonging to Dr Lev.

Lizzy Gill, the nurse, has swapped Scully's prescription medication for unidentified pills. She then meets Duffy Haskell...

In Parenti's office, Mulder and Doggett discover Parenti's severed head. Billy Miles is responsible - he attacks Mulder with superhuman strength. Doggett shoots him, but he seems unaffected.

Mulder thinks that Miles is destroying experiments with alien biology. He's concerned for Scully's baby. Lizzy Gill overhears the conversation, and warns Duffy Haskell that their plan is threatened.

Duffy is beheaded by Billy Miles in an industrial warehouse. Skinner tells Doggett it was a human cloning facility.

Mulder phones Scully about her pregnancy, but Scully discovers Lizzy Gill switching her pills as she answers the phone. In hospital, Scully is told her child is fine - the pills were harmless. However, as Mulder and Doggett interrogate Lizzy, she reveals that Scully's child is perfect - without human frailties. Mulder visits Scully and tells her to leave, as she is in danger.

Billy Miles is in Dr Parenti's office, and wants to give himself up. When Doggett and Crane investigate, he's gone - it was a diversion. Mulder is hurrying Scully to her car as Billy Miles appears - but he is run down by Alex Krycek.

Krycek drives Mulder and Scully to FBI HQ, explaining that 'human replacements' such a Billy are trying to stop humanity surviving the coming alien invasion. These replacements are scared of Scully's baby, as it is more than human. Krycek wanted to destroy the child to stop the aliens learning of a higher power - God.

Billy Miles infiltrates the FBI building, and Mulder asks Krycek to protect Scully. Miles follows Skinner on to the roof, where Mulder pushes him off the roof into a garbage truck, where he is crushed. Reyes drives off with Scully, observed by Agent Crane - who has spiked vertebra at the back of his neck...

Existence
  Scully is in hiding... and in labour.

During an autopsy, metallic vertebrae are found in Billy Miles body. Unobserved, the vertebrae transform into a human figure, and leave the pathology lab.

Reyes and Scully go into hiding in Democrat Hot Springs, where Doggett was born. Leaving Scully, Reyes sees a strange light on the horizon.

Mulder, Skinner and Doggett are investigating apparently impossible photos of Billy Miles leaving the lab. Krycek tells them that Billy is a human replacement - an alien created to aid in Earth's repopulation; a plan which Scully's baby is threatening. Knowle Rohrer, however, tells Doggett that Miles is a prototype 'super soldier'. Doggett is skeptical.

Billy Miles appears at FBI headquarters. Afraid, Skinner runs from his office, narrowly making it to the lift. Krycek, in the lift, makes no effort to help him. Suddenly, the doors are split open by Billy's arm - wounding Skinner. He is taken to hospital.

Doggett tells Mulder that Rohrer claims Billy is a product of a cold war government programme to make super soldiers, and that Scully is part of the programme too. Her pregnancy was triggered by the chip in her neck.

Elsewhere, Reyes and Scully are hiding in an abandoned building. A 4x4 vehicle pulls up, and Reyes pulls her gun, but it is a game warden, offering medical supplies. The warden claims not to have seen the light in the sky. They encounter Billy Miles: Reyes runs, but the game warden shoots him in the chest. The warden tells them she'll have to report the incident, but Scully has started having contractions.

Doggett and Mulder see Rohrer and Krycek enter the FBI building. Rohrer talks to Agent Crane, and Mulder concludes that Rohrer, Crane and Krycek have been fooling them into chasing Billy Miles, when they've known Scully's location all along. Afraid for Scully, Mulder makes Doggett reveal her hiding place. As Mulder goes to his car, Krycek pulls a gun on him. A shot is fired - but it is Skinner, shooting Krycek.

In the abandoned building, the warden is helping Scully - but Reyes notices that she has reptilian vertebrae. She throws boiling water in the warden's face, and grabs her shotgun. Soon after, cars surround the building, and the warden assures Reyes that Scully's baby will be born. Billy Miles picks himself up, and a group surround Scully...

Rohrer and Crane chase Doggett and Skinner - Skinner runs down Crane, who continues attacking. Skinner crashes the car, shaking off Crane who is run over by Rohrer - who also crashes.

Scully gives birth, as Mulder flies to her by helicopter.

Doggett tells Kersh the office is being investigated becasue of the late night meeting he witnessed between Kersh, Crane and Rohrer.