Mulder: I almost gave up on you.
Scully: Sorry. Checkout lines were worse than rush hour on the 95. If I heard "Silent Night" one more time I was going to start taking hostages.
Mulder: I just thought you'd be more . . . curious.
Scully: Who lives in the house?
Mulder: No one.
Scully: Then who are we staking out?
Mulder: The former occupants.
Scully: They've come back?
Mulder: That's the story.
Scully: I see. The dark, gothic manor the, uh, omnipresent low fog hugging the thicket of overgrowth. Wait -- is that a hound I hear baying out on the moors?
Mulder: No. Actually that was a left cheek sneak.
Scully: Mulder, tell me you didn't call me out here on Christmas Eve to go ghost busting with you.
Mulder: Technically speaking they're called apparitions.
Mulder: I'll make it fast. I'll just give you the details.
Scully: Okay.
Mulder: (mysteriously) Christmas, 1917. It was a time of dark, dark despair. American soldiers were dying at an ungodly rate in a war-torn Europe while at home, a deadly strain of the flu virus attacked young and old alike. Tragedy was a visitor on every doorstep while a creeping hopelessness set in with every man, woman and child. It was a time of dark, dark despair.
Scully: You said that.
Mulder: But here at 1501 Larkspur Lane for a pair of star-crossed lovers tragedy came not from war or pestilence -- not by the boot heel or the bombardier -- but by their own innocent hand.
Scully: Go on.
Mulder: His name was Maurice. He was a . . . a brooding but heroic young man beloved of Lyda, a sublime beauty with a light that seemed to follow her wherever she went. They were likened to two angels descended from heaven whom the gods could not protect from the horrors being visited upon this cold, grey earth.
Scully: And what happened to them?
Mulder: Driven by a tragic fear of separation they forged a lovers' pact so that they might spend eternity together and not spend one precious Christmas apart.
Scully: They killed themselves?
Mulder: And their ghosts haunt this house every Christmas Eve.
(Scully laughs.)
Mulder: I just gave myself chills.
(he gave them to me too ;)
Scully: It's a good story, Mulder . . . And very well told but I don't believe it.
Mulder: You don't believe in ghosts?
Scully: That surprises you?
Mulder: Well . . . Yeah. I thought everybody believed in ghosts.
Scully: Mulder, if it were any other night I might let you talk me into it but the halls are decked and I got to go.
Mulder: There's nothing to be afraid of.
Scully: I'm not afraid, okay?
Mulder: Ghosts are benevolent entities.
(Sound of chains clanking from above.)
Mulder: Mostly.
Scully: You are not scaring me, Mulder.
Mulder: Tell me you're not afraid.
Scully: All right. I'm afraid . . . but it's an irrational fear.
(Scully takes a few breaths, then heads for the cracked open door.)
Mulder: (not moving) I got your back.
Scully: (whispers) Thank you.
Scully: Don't look so disappointed.
Mulder: Why would anyone want to live in a cursed house?
Scully: Mulder, it's not enough that it's haunted? It has to be cursed?
Mulder: Every couple that's ever lived here has met a tragic end. Three double murders in the last 80 years. All on Christmas Eve.
(Scully notices that the ladder to the upper level of the library is missing.)
Scully: Mulder?
(Scully turns back to Mulder who is holding the flashlight under his chin in the classic "scare the bejeebees out of your little sister/friend" pose. It works. Scully turns and screams and he screams back at her.)
Scully: That's not funny!
Mulder: There may be somebody trapped under there.
Scully: Mulder, don't.
Mulder: I got to get them out.
Scully: Not now.
Mulder: Hey, you have a gun, right? Rationally, you've been in much more dangerous situations.
Scully: You know what's weird?
Mulder: What?
Scully: Mulder, she's wearing my outfit.
Mulder: How embarrassing.
Scully: Yeah, well, you know what? He's wearing yours.
(Mulder checks what he's wearing)
Mulder: Oh . . . Scully . . .
Scully: That's us.
Maurice: Am I to take it we're not alone?
(Mulder chuckles.)
Mulder: Ah, that's very funny coming from a ghost.
Maurice: (laughs heartily) Yeah, oh . . . the gun fooled me a little at first. You're a ghost hunter, huh? And you think I'm a ghost, huh? I've seen a lot of strange folks coming around here with a lot of strange equipment but I think you must be the first I've seen come armed.
Maurice: You drink? Take drugs?
Mulder: No.
Maurice: Get high?
Mulder: No.
Maurice: Are you overcome by the impulse to make everyone believe you?
Maurice: I'm in the field of mental health. I specialize in disorders and manias related to pathological behavior as it pertains to the paranormal.
Mulder: Wow. I didn't know such a thing existed.
Maurice: My specialty is in what I call soul prospectors -- a crossaxial classification I've codified by extensive interaction with visitors like yourself. I've found you all tend to fall into pretty much the same category.
Mulder: And what category is that?
Maurice: Narcissistic, overzealous, self-righteous egomaniac.
Mulder: That's a category?
Maurice: You've probably convinced yourself you've seen aliens. You know why you think you see the things you do?
Mulder: Because I have seen them?
Maurice: 'Cause you're a lonely man. A lonely man chasing paramasturbatory illusions that you believe will give your life meaning and significance and which your pathetic social maladjustment makes impossible for you to find elsewhere. You probably consider yourself passionate, serious, misunderstood. Am I right?
Mulder: "Paramasturbatory"?
Scully: You don't know me. And you don't live here. This isn't your house.
Lyda: You wouldn't think so, the way I'm being treated.
Scully: Well, then why is all the furniture covered?
Lyda: We're having the house painted.
Scully: Well then where's your Christmas tree?!
Lyda: We're Jewish. Boo.
Maurice: You see what we've resorted to? Gimmicks and cheap tricks. We used to be so good at this.
Lyda: We used to have years to drive them mad. Now we get one night.
Maurice: This pop psychology approach is crap. All it does is annoy them.
Lyda: Are you Agent Mulder?
Mulder: Who are you, now?
Lyda: What are you doing using my chair for a ladder?
Mulder: I'm trying to get out of this room.
Lyda: Trying to get out?
Mulder: Excuse me.
Lyda: No, no. You can't get out that way.
(Mulder hesitates, then pokes her in the shoulder. She's solid. He pushes her against the wall.)
Lyda: Masher.
Mulder: Frump.
Lyda: I don't know who you're calling a frump but I don't appreciate that -- being manhandled, or called names. Certainly not at this hour.
Mulder: You're a ghost.
Lyda: Oh, more names!
Mulder: What happened to the star-crossed lovers?
Lyda: Oh, let me tell you the romance is the first thing to go.
Mulder: It's you. You're Lyda, and that was Maurice. But you've aged.
Lyda: I hope your partner finds you a lot more charming than I do. Let's see. Where is it?
(Lyda mutters as, by themselves, books pull out of bookcase. Mulder is fascinated.)
Lyda: No, no, no, no . . . there it is. (selects a book - The Ghosts Who Stole Christmas) I was young and beautiful once, just like your partner. Whoo! Look at us. Maurice was so handsome. (fire blazes up) He didn't have a gut.
Lyda: I'm assuming you came here with similar misconceptions.
Mulder: We came here looking for you.
Lyda: Oh, yeah? You didn't come here to be together for eternity?
Mulder: (chuckling) No.
Lyda: Because you're filled with despair and woeful Christmas melancholy?
Mulder: Why?
Lyda: (sighing) Maybe it was your partner then.
Mulder: What about her?
Lyda: You knew this house was haunted.
Mulder: Yeah.
Lyda: Maybe you two should have discussed your real feelings before you came out here. I'm speaking from experience.
Mulder: What experience?
Lyda: I'm not going to get into semantics. A murder-suicide is all about trust.
Mulder: I thought you had a lovers' pact.
Lyda: (laughs) Poetic illusions aside, the outcome, Mulder, is pretty much the same.
(Lyda stands and holds open her robe exposing the bullet wound.)
Mulder: (shocked) Oh!
Lyda: I don't show my hole to just anyone.
Mulder: (rather disgusted) Why are you showing it to me?
Mulder: Oh, you're trying to tell me that Scully's going to shoot me. Scully is not going to shoot me.
Lyda: Suit yourself, but if you shoot first, for her, the rest is an act of faith.
Mulder: I wouldn't shoot her.
Lyda: Maybe she shoots herself.
Mulder: (confidently) I wouldn't let her.
Lyda: The bodies under the floor -- maybe that was just some kind of Jungian symbolism. Or maybe . . . there's a secret lovers' pact.
Mulder: (sighing with a smile) We're not lovers.
Lyda: And this isn't a pure science. But you're both so attractive and there'll be a lot of time to work that out. (holds a gun out to him) Go ahead, take it.
Maurice: Do you realize how seriously disturbed that man is?
Mulder: (maniacal) It's me or you . . . You or me. One of us has to do it.
Scully: Mulder, look . . . We don't have to do this.
Mulder: Oh, yes, we do.
Scully: We can get out of here.
Mulder: Even if we could what's waiting for us? More loneliness! And then 365 more shopping days till even more loneliness!
Scully: I don't believe what you're saying! Mulder, I don't believe a word of it.
Scully: (whispering as she lowers the gun and falls back on to the floor) Ah . . . I'm not going to make it.
Mulder: (holding his gun on her) No, you're not . . . Not without me, you're not.
Scully: Are you afraid, Mulder? I am.
Mulder: I am, too.
Mulder: You should have thought of this.
Scully: You should have.
Mulder: You shot me first!
Scully: I didn't shoot you. You shot me.
(With dawning realization, Mulder stands up.)
Mulder: Scully . . .
Scully: What?
Mulder: Get up.
Scully: I can't.
Mulder: Get up . . . You're not shot.
(Mulder holds his bloody shirt away from his stomach.)
Scully: What?
Mulder: Come on. It's a trick. It's all in your head.
(He pulls Scully to her feet and holds out her bloody shirt. She looks down, then they both run out the now unlocked front door. Once outside, they look down at their now clean shirts, then run to their cars and drive off quickly.)
Lyda: You hear that? It's Christmas.
Maurice: One for the books.
Lyda: We almost had those two, didn't we?
Maurice: Almost had them.
Lyda: Two such lonely souls.
Maurice: We can't let our failures haunt us.
Lyda: You wonder what they were really out here looking for.
Maurice: Hard to say. People now . . . This is just another joyless day of the year.
Lyda: Not for us.
Maurice: No. We haven't forgotten the meaning of Christmas.
(They hold hands and fade away as the clock strikes twelve.)
Scully: I, uh . . . I couldn't sleep. I was, um . . . Can I come in?
(Mulder puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into the apartment and closes the door. They're both exhausted.)
Mulder: Come in. Aren't you supposed to be opening Christmas gifts with your family?
Scully: Mulder . . . None of that really happened out there tonight . . . That was all in our heads, right?
Mulder: (unsure of what to say) I-it must have been.
Scully: Mmm. Not that, uh, my only joy in life is proving you wrong.
Mulder: When have you proved me wrong?
Scully: Well . . . Why else would you want me out there with you?
Mulder: You didn't want to be there?
(Scully has no answer. They both think about it.)
Mulder: Oh, that's, um . . . That's self-righteous and . . . narcissistic of me to say, isn't it?
Scully: No, I mean . . . Maybe I did want to be out there with you.
(They look at each other for a moment.)
Mulder: Now, um . . . I know we said that we weren't going to exchange gifts but, uh . . . I got you . . . a little something.
(With a shy smile, he holds out a small wrapped tubular present.)
Scully: Mulder . . .
Mulder: Merry Christmas.
Scully: Well, I got you a little something, too.
(Embarrassed she holds out a small rectangular wrapped gift. He chuckles as they take each other's presents. He shakes his, and she grins happily, then like kids they run over to the couch and begin opening their gifts as the camera pans away outside the window through the falling snow.)
Bing Crosby: Have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
6x07 6x09
