A
woman, Kath, is in the hospital, about to give birth and the doctor
orders an emergency C-Section because the baby's heart rate is high.
When her husband, later identified as Duffy Haskell, leaves the room
to scrub, a nurse locks the door behind him. The mother is
distraught and is knocked out with drugs. When the baby is born, it
appears to be alien.
When Scully arrives
at the office, Haskell is there, talking to Doggett. He is with the
Ohio Mutual UFO Network and he communicated with Mulder eight years
ago, claiming that his wife was a multiple abductee. He says she is
dead, killed by doctors after giving birth to an alien baby. He has
an ultrasound showing that the baby was not normal, and his wife
wasn't supposed to be able to have babies. When Haskell leaves,
Doggett points out that his wife's story is very similar to
Scully's, which Doggett has read in the X-Files, except for the
baby, but Scully tells Doggett that her personal files are private.
In the elevator, Scully has a flashback to when she first told
Mulder that she could not have children. He, in turn, told her about
finding her ova in the research facility run by the Kurt Crawford
clone. He immediately took the ova sample to a specialist, who said
that they were not viable. Doggett interrupts her reverie and she
tells him that there is nothing to do on the Haskell case.
Scully goes to Zeus
Genetics in Germantown, MD. Nobody greets her, so she walks down a
hall and hears voices – a man calming several disturbed women.
Scully ducks into a room to hide and finds dozens of deformed
fetuses in storage bottles. The doctor discovers her and she lies,
claiming to be with a friend, then she rushes home to call her
doctor, Dr. James Parenti. He agrees to meet with her, and viewers
see that he is in the room with the deformed fetuses, unwrapping the
body of an alien baby. Scully has another flashback to her
conversation with Parenti when he told her that he and his
colleagues believed that there was a chance that under their care
she could become pregnant, but, of course, she needed a father. She
said she had someone in mind, but had to figure out how to ask him.
The flashback over, she meets with Parenti who says her ultrasound
looks fine. He encourages her to tell the FBI about her pregnancy.
When Scully returns
to the office, Doggett has received a call from Parenti's office
about a sonogram Scully left there. He thinks she is investigating
the Haskell case, since the Haskells had consulted Parenti in
connection to their pregnancy. Haskell is called back in to the FBI
to be questioned in Skinner's office. He has a history of making
threats, in the letters to Mulder and to the Haskell's current
doctor, Dr. Lev. He tells a convincing story about what happened to
his wife, but Doggett says there is no record that they were ever
married. When Haskell leaves, he telephones Dr. Lev and it is clear
that they are conspiring together. When Scully returns home that
evening we see a flashback to Mulder visiting her apartment. She had
earlier asked him to be the father of her child, and he gives her
his answer – yes. He is complimented, but doesn't want this to
come between them in any way. He will talk to the doctor about the
donor procedure. As the flashback ends, Mary Hendershot knocks on
Scully's door. She was at Zeus Genetics earlier, and says that both
her baby and Scully's are in danger.
Doggett drives his
pickup up to an all-night restaurant, where he meets Skinner and
Scully. Skinner tells Doggett that Scully has requested a leave of
absence, but they don't reveal why. He is unhappy that they are not
being candid with him, but Scully promises that she is not putting
Doggett at risk. He sees her get into her car, where Mary Hendershot
is waiting. Doggett doesn't know who Mary is, but it adds to the
mystery he is trying to figure out. Scully takes Mary to
Walden-Freedman Army Hospital, where they have an expert obstetrics
team. She explains the suspicion that the baby may not be human and
the team prepares to induce labor in Mary. Meanwhile, Dr. Miryum, a
woman doctor, takes Scully into another examining room and does
another ultrasound that looks completely normal. Joe Farah, an FBI
agent friend of Doggett's, reports that Haskell's fingerprints match
the records of a Marine named Haskell who died in 1970. David
Haskell was buried in a Virginia cemetary in a Marine honor goard
ceremony. Doggett talks to another friend, Knowle, who is apparently
part of an intelligence agency. Knowle agrees to look into it and
see if Haskell is a "spook," i.e. an intelligence agent.
If he his, then his visit to the X-Files office had hidden agendas.
Doggett confronts
Skinner, telling him that Haskell was a setup to get Scully to go
wherever she went. Under pressure, Skinner admits the name of the
Army research facility and Doggett rushes off. After Scully's tests,
she is left alone to rest. She notices a VHS videotape in playback
mode. Removing the tape, she sees that the label has another woman's
name on it, Nancy Boxwell, with the date 11/23/00. Scully suspects
that she has been duped. She rushes to get Mary and escape the Army
facility. As they slip out into a parking garage, Knowle is there
with a team of commandoes. He says he is a friend of Doggett's and
hustles the two women into a suburban. As they drive away, military
police chase them, but the suburban eludes them. Mary goes into
labor and Scully demands that the vehicle stop. When they stop, the
commando team members prevent Scully from attending Mary, injecting
Scully with a drug that causes her to pass out.
Scully wakes up in
a hospital room and finds Doggett sitting near her. He reports that
both she and the baby are fine. Mary is also fine, with a healthy
son. Scully believes that the boy was substituted for Mary's alien
child, but there is no proof. Everyone says Scully overreacted. For
example, they said that the videotape was of her sonogram, just
recorded on an old tape. Scully is convinced that she and Doggett
were used to get Mary's baby, and now they are also being used to
cover it up. Why didn't she tell Doggett about her baby? She was
afraid that "they" would use it to take her off the X-
Files, and she would never find Mulder. Doggett repeats his pledge
to help her find Mulder.
The episode ends
with another flashback. Scully returns home to find Mulder waiting
for her. The artificial insemination did not work and Scully will
not have a baby. She feels it was her last chance, but Mulder hugs
her and advises, "Never give up on a miracle."
