Fox Mulder
Sorry about that. Come on in.
Season 6 · Episode 18
Milagro
Character-labelled dialogue prepared from the official DVD subtitle track.
Production code6ABX18Original airdate · April 18, 1999
265 dialogue entries
Scene 01
Opening scene
[ elevator bell dings ]
[ doors close ]
[ elevator bell dings ]
Scene 02
Scene 02
Dana Scully
I, uh-- I rode up on the elevator with someone. Someone from next door, I think.
Fox Mulder
Young guy?
Dana Scully
Yeah.
Fox Mulder
New neighbor. Why?
Dana Scully
You met him?
Fox Mulder
Uh, briefly, yeah. He's a writer.
Dana Scully
What does he write?
Fox Mulder
He didn't say.
Dana Scully
These are, uh-- these are my autopsy reports from the second victim. As you can see, the heart was removed in the same manner as the previous victim. No incisions, no scope marks, no cutting of any kind.
Fox Mulder
No indication of how the killer did it?
Dana Scully
No. There's no prints, no d.n.a. Material, no hair and fiber.
Fox Mulder
And yet you still refuse to believe my theory-- that what this is is psychic surgery?
Dana Scully
Psychic surgery is some man dipping his hand in a bucket of chicken guts... And pretending to remove tumors from the sick and gullible.
Fox Mulder
Or... It's a grossly misunderstood area of alternative medicine.
Dana Scully
Well, medicine, as you're referring to it, is about keeping people alive.
Fox Mulder
Absent another theory, how else do we account for the impossible extraction of this man's heart?
Dana Scully
I don't know. I have no idea.
Fox Mulder
I mean, we have no evidence, no m.o. To speak of. This could be the perfect crime.
Dana Scully
Well, crime is only as perfect as the man or the mind that commits it. Even if it were perfect, even if he made not one mistake, there's still his motive. You find his motive and you find the murderer.
Maggie
That's why I didn't wanna come here, Kevin.
Kevin
I'm not even doing anything.
Maggie
Well, you're thinking about it.
Kevin
There's a console between us. How much can I do? You make it sound like I'm an attacker.
Maggie
Well, we talked about this.
Kevin
I told you I loved you.
Maggie
Oh, Kevin.
[ no audible dialogue ]
Maggie
There you go again.
Kevin
What?
Maggie
That thing that you do. You know what.
Kevin
That's the way I kiss, Maggie.
Maggie
Well, I get the message.
Kevin
Where you going?
Maggie
I can't talk to you.
Kevin
Maggie! [ groans ] Maggie? Maggie! Maggie!
[ leaves rustling ]
Kevin
Maggie, come on!
[ groaning ]
Kevin
[ screaming ] no! No! No! [ flesh tearing ] no!
[ phone ringing ]
Scene 03
FBI HEADQUARTERS
Fox Mulder
Scully. Glad I caught you. We got a third victim. A 16-year-old kid out on lover's lane.
Dana Scully
Are you sure?
Fox Mulder
Yeah. I'm sure many a person's had their heart broken out here, but not quite like this. I was hoping you'd be here to explain it in medical terms to the local p.d.
Dana Scully
I'm not sure that I could. Did anybody see anybody?
Fox Mulder
No, nothing. It's like there's nowhere to start on this case. Nothing to ask. Nothing to say.
Dana Scully
Well, there's got to be something, Mulder. Something about his victims-- why he chooses them, a pattern.
Fox Mulder
So far there's absolutely nothing. It appears to be just a series of random attacks.
Dana Scully
An envelope's been slipped under your door.
Fox Mulder
Yeah? From who?
Dana Scully
It's unmarked. It's some kind of a pendant. Like a charm.
Phillip Padgett
Her prompt mind ran through the golconda of possibilities. Was this trinket from the killer? Was there a message contained in its equivocal symbolism? Was he a religious fanatic who had, in fervid haste... Licked the envelope, leaving the telltale d.n.a. That would begin his unraveling? She had a condign certainty the killer was a male, and now as she held the cold metal at her fingertips... She imagined him doing the same, trying to picture his face. It would be a plain face, an average face-- a face people would be prone to trust. She knew this inherently, being naturally trusting herself. But the image she conjured up was no better than the useless sketch composites... That littered her files. Preconsciously, she knew this wasn't her strength as an investigator. She was a marshal of cold facts, quick to organize, connect, shuffle, reorder and synthesize their relative hard values into discreet categories. Imprecision would only invite sexist criticism-- that she was soft, malleable, not up to her male counterparts. Even now, as she pushed an errant strand of titian hair behind her ear, she worried her partner would know instinctively what she could only guess. To be thought of as simply a beautiful woman was bridling-- unthinkable. But she was beautiful, fatally, stunningly prepossessing. Yet the compensatory respect she commanded... Only deepened the yearnings of her heart-- to let it open-- to let someone in.
Scene 04
Scene 04
Dana Scully
It's called a milagro. That's the spanish word for "miracle." it's worn as a lucky charm.
Fox Mulder
It came here for me?
Dana Scully
It was dropped off at a reception by a man in his late 20s, early 30s, average looking, average build. They weren't able to get a good ID there are no fingerprints... And no d.n.a. From his saliva.
Fox Mulder
I don't think it's the killer, Scully.
Dana Scully
Did you see that it's a burning heart?
Fox Mulder
I see it has a burning heart. We're dealing with a killer that leaves no clues. Why would he do something as heavy-handed as this?
Dana Scully
Maybe it has something to do with his next victim-- maybe he's taunting you.
Fox Mulder
Maybe it's not me at all. Maybe he sent it to you. Maybe it's a secret admirer.
[ scoffs ]
Dana Scully
I think I'll check it out.
Fox Mulder
Actually, let me. You've got a 9:00 a.m. With the D.C. Medical examiner. He's gonna let you autopsy the latest victim.
Dana Scully
Thank you for making my schedule, but I think I'm gonna have to be late for that.
Scene 05
Scene 05
Phillip Padgett
I often come here to look at this painting. It's called "my divine heart" after the miracle of st. Margaret mary. Do you know the story-- the revelation of the sacred heart? Christ came to margaret mary-- his heart so inflamed with love that it was no longer able... To contain its burning flames of charity. Margaret mary, so filled with divine love herself, asked the lord to take her heart. And so he did, placing it alongside his... Until it burned with the flames of his passion. Then he restored it to margaret mary... Sealing her wound with the touch of his blessed hand.
Dana Scully
Why are you telling me this?
Phillip Padgett
You came here specifically to see this painting, didn't you?
Dana Scully
Yes. How did you know that?
Phillip Padgett
I saw you enter. The way you knew right where it was.
Dana Scully
I know you. You live next to somebody I work with. Why are you following me?
Phillip Padgett
I'm not. I'd only imagined that you'd come here today.
Dana Scully
Oh, you imagined it.
Phillip Padgett
Yes.
Dana Scully
Yeah.
Phillip Padgett
I'm a writer. That's what I do-- imagine how people behave. I have to admit I've noticed you. I do that-- notice people. I saw that you wear a gold cross around your neck so I was taking a chance with the painting-- explaining something you may have already known. I saw georgetown parking permits on your car dating from 1993... And a government exempt sticker that lets you park anywhere you like. You don't live in this area, but as a federal employee you have reason to frequent it. You're fit with muscular calves, so you must exercise or run. There's a popular running route right nearby that you might use at lunch or after work. You'd have noticed this church in passing, and though parking is always a problem in this part of town, your special privileges would make it easy to visit, not as a place of worship, but because you have an appreciation for architecture and the arts. And while the grandeur is what you take away from your visit, this painting's religious symbolism would have left a subconscious impression... Jogged by the gift you received this morning.
Dana Scully
That was from you?
Phillip Padgett
I have to admit to a secret attraction. I'm sorry I didn't include a note explaining that, but you didn't know me then.
Dana Scully
And I don't know you now, and I don't care to.
Phillip Padgett
I see this is making you uncomfortable, and I'm sorry. It's just that I'm taken with you. That never happens to me. We're alike that way.
Scene 06
Scene 06
Fox Mulder
You weren't joking about being late. I was about to start slicing and dicing myself.
Dana Scully
I'm sorry. [ sighs ]
Fox Mulder
Where were you?
Dana Scully
I was doing some research, and learning that I owe you an apology.
Fox Mulder
For what?
Dana Scully
The milagro charm. You were right about its insignificance.
Fox Mulder
I think I was wrong. I think it's very significant. It may be a communication from the killer. Most of my research shows that most credible practitioners with psychic surgery... Believe themselves to be imbued with the holy spirit-- that their hands become the miracle tools of god.
Dana Scully
Mulder, this is nothing more than a tool... Used by a lovelorn romeo who just happens to be your next-door neighbor.
Fox Mulder
Who, the writer?
Dana Scully
Yes. My secret admirer... Who claims to know the mysteries of my heart.
Fox Mulder
You're kidding.
Dana Scully
I wish I were. He cornered me today and told me my life story. It was kind of frightening, actually.
Fox Mulder
Is he our killer?
Dana Scully
No. "frightening" as in too much information and intimate detail. What kills you is his audacity.
Fox Mulder
Did you get his name?
Dana Scully
No, but that shouldn't be too hard to find out, should it?
[ elevator bell dings ]
Scene 07
Scene 07
Fox Mulder
I'm sorry. I forgot your name.
Phillip Padgett
Padgett.
Fox Mulder
Padgett.
Phillip Padgett
Phillip Padgett.
Fox Mulder
You're a writer. Anything I'd know?
Phillip Padgett
I don't think so.
[ elevator bell dings ]
Phillip Padgett
You're an FBI agent. Working on anything interesting?
Fox Mulder
A murder case.
Phillip Padgett
Anything I'd know?
Fox Mulder
Possibly.
Phillip Padgett
The overture in the church had urged the beautiful agent's partner... Into an act of hegelian self-justification. Expeditiously violating the fourth amendment against mail theft, he prepared to impudently infract the first.
[ typing continues ]
Phillip Padgett
But if she'd predictably aroused her sly partner's suspicions, special agent Dana Scully had herself... Become simply aroused. All morning the stranger's unsolicited compliments... Had played on the dampened strings of her instrument... Until the middle "c" of consciousness was struck square and resonant. She was flattered. His words had presented her a pretty picture of herself, quite unlike the practiced mask of uprightness... That mirrored back to her from the medical examiners and the investigators... And all the lawmen who dared no such utterances. She felt an involuntary flush... And rebuked herself for the girlish indulgence. But the images came perforce and she let them play-- let them flood in like savory... Or more a sugary confection from her adolescence... When her senses were new and ungoverned by fear and self-denial. Ache. Pang. Prick. Twinge. How ironic the victorian vocabulary of behavioral pathology... Now so perfectly described the palpations of her own desire. The stranger had looked her in the eye... And knew her more completely than she knew herself. She felt wild, feral, guilty as a criminal. Had the stranger unleashed in her what was already there, or only helped her discover a landscape she by necessity blinded herself to? What would her partner think of her?
[ typing continues ]
Fox Mulder
Mr. Popularity.
[ elevator bell dings ]
[ typing continues ]
[ knocking ]
Dana Scully
Hi. I, um-- I was going next door and I thought that I'd return this.
Phillip Padgett
Why?
Dana Scully
Because I can't return the gesture. I can't.
Phillip Padgett
You're curious about me.
[ scoffs ]
Dana Scully
You don't have any furniture.
Phillip Padgett
I have what I need. I write at my desk. I sleep in my bed.
Dana Scully
You don't eat?
Phillip Padgett
I live in my head.
Dana Scully
Writing your books?
Phillip Padgett
Yes.
Dana Scully
Anything I'd know?
Phillip Padgett
No. They're all failures, except the one I'm working on now. I think I'm getting it right.
Dana Scully
Why now all of a sudden?
Phillip Padgett
Best not to question it. See? You are curious about me.
Dana Scully
Well, you lead a curious life.
Phillip Padgett
It's not so different from yours, I imagine. Lonely.
Dana Scully
Loneliness is a choice.
Phillip Padgett
So, how about a cup of coffee?
Dana Scully
My life's not so lonely, mister, uh--
Phillip Padgett
Padgett.
Dana Scully
It's actually anything but. How is it you think you know me so well, mr. Padgett?
Phillip Padgett
I'm writing about you.
Dana Scully
Right. Since when?
Phillip Padgett
Since I first noticed you. You live in my old neighborhood.
Dana Scully
And you moved into this building by coincidence?
Phillip Padgett
No.
Dana Scully
You moved here because of me?
Phillip Padgett
There wasn't anything available in your building, and it's not like you spent a lot of time at home. I should have said something, but I just couldn't get it all down fast enough. To really write someone, I have to be in their head. I have to know them more completely than they know themselves.
Dana Scully
This is all about me?
Phillip Padgett
You're an important part.
Dana Scully
May I read it?
Phillip Padgett
It's not finished. I can't tell you how helpful it is having you here-- being able to talk with you like this. Would you sit and stay a minute?
Dana Scully
You don't have anywhere to sit. I'm due next door.
Phillip Padgett
You haven't finished your coffee.
Dana Scully
[ sighs ] I'm very uncomfortable with this.
Phillip Padgett
Why? You're armed, aren't you? Imagine that. I'll get a bulb. A view only a writer can appreciate.
Dana Scully
If you know me so well, then why am I standing here when my instincts... Tell me to go?
Phillip Padgett
Motive is never easy. Sometimes it occurs to one only later. Please. Sit. Imagine that.
[ door opens ]
Dana Scully
Mulder!
Fox Mulder
Scully.
Dana Scully
What are you doing?
Fox Mulder
You all right?
Dana Scully
Yes. Mulder? What are you doing?
Fox Mulder
Putting this man under arrest.
[ handcuffs locking ]
Scene 08
Scene 08
Phillip Padgett
Yes, I've seen this paper.
Fox Mulder
Yeah. That's how you found your victims-- in the personals. They all took out personal ads.
Phillip Padgett
They were lovers.
Fox Mulder
And you targeted them.
Phillip Padgett
I only write about them.
Fox Mulder
No, you targeted--
Dana Scully
Mulder. Not without his lawyer.
Phillip Padgett
I don't need a lawyer. I'm telling the truth.
Fox Mulder
And this is your confession?
Phillip Padgett
No, that's my novel.
Fox Mulder
It's all in there-- every detail, every murder, all laid out. How'd you do it, mr. Padgett?
Phillip Padgett
If I sit long enough, it just comes to me.
Fox Mulder
The murders.
Phillip Padgett
I only knew what was in my mind and wished to express it clearly.
Fox Mulder
How about the "stranger"? Is that you? How about ken Naciamento?
Phillip Padgett
The self-proclaimed brazilian psychic surgeon?
Fox Mulder
Is that your accomplice?
Phillip Padgett
I guess you could say that. He's a central character.
Fox Mulder
Did you direct him to do it?
Phillip Padgett
Jungians say it's the characters who choose the writer, not the other way around. So I guess you could argue he directed me.
Fox Mulder
Which is the truth?
Phillip Padgett
By their nature, words are imprecise and layered with meaning. The signs of things, not the things themselves. It's difficult to say who's in charge.
Dana Scully
Mulder. Okay.
Fox Mulder
Why, mr. Padgett? Maybe that's a question you can answer.
Phillip Padgett
That's the one question I can't.
[ package rustles ]
Phillip Padgett
Agent Mulder, my book-- did you like it?
Fox Mulder
Maybe if it were fiction.
Dana Scully
Mulder, where are you going?
Fox Mulder
To find his accomplice, the brazilian psychic surgeon.
Dana Scully
I did that. That's what I've been doing. Dr. Ken Naciamento, sao paulo, brazil. Emigrated here in 1996.
Fox Mulder
Where is he now?
Dana Scully
He's dead.
Fox Mulder
Can't be.
Dana Scully
Two years dead. I'm having them fax a certificate of death.
Fox Mulder
Padgett couldn't have done this alone.
Dana Scully
Maybe he didn't do it at all.
Fox Mulder
Scully, it's all on the page. How else would he know it?
Dana Scully
Maybe he imagined it, like he said. Like shakespeare or freud or jung. I mean, maybe-- maybe he has some gift... And he has a clear window into human nature.
Fox Mulder
No one can tell you what another person's gonna do. No one can predict human behavior.
Dana Scully
Isn't that what you do, Mulder, as a behavioral profiler? You imagine the killer's mind so well you know what they're gonna do next.
Fox Mulder
If he imagines it, it's a priori, before the fact. I think that's pretty clear from what he wrote about you. You know you're in here, don't you?
Dana Scully
Yeah. I read a chapter. What does he say?
Fox Mulder
Well, let's just say it ends with you doing the naked pretzel with the "stranger"... On a bed in an unfurnished fourth floor apartment. I'm assuming that's a priori too?
Dana Scully
[ scoffs ] I think you know me better than that, Mulder.
Fox Mulder
Well-- well, you might wanna finish it.
[ door opens ]
Guard
Prisoner's written something I think you should see.
Dana Scully
What is it?
Guard
He says it's a statement, but I think he's putting somebody on.
Dana Scully
"grief squeezed at her eggshell heart... "like it might break into a thousand pieces. "its contents running like broken promises... "into the hollow places his love used to fill. "how could she know this pain would end? "that love, unlike matter or energy, "was an endless supply in the universe-- "a germ which grows from nothingness which cannot be eradicated, "even from the darkest of hearts. "if she had known this, and who could say she would believe it, "she would not have chanced to remain at his sad grave until such an hour... "so that she might not have to learn the second truth before the first: "that to have love... "was to carry a vessel that could be lost or stolen or worse-- "spilled blood-red on the ground. "and that love was not immutable. "it could become hate as day becomes night-- as life becomes death."
[ screams ]
[ screaming ]
[ screaming continues ]
[ screaming stops ]
Scene 09
Scene 09
Dana Scully
She's a no-show at home or anywhere else she might go.
Fox Mulder
No signs of a possible struggle at the grave site, but the area's been so trammeled by the funeral that collecting evidence is gonna be impossible. I think this is a big jerk off.
Dana Scully
Maybe his statement's to prove he's telling the truth-- that he truly just imagined it.
Fox Mulder
The only thing that he imagined was us out here... Looking like idiots. Hands where I can see 'em! Don't move until I tell you! I'm a federal agent.
Dana Scully
Mulder, that's not him.
Cemetery Worker
What'd I do?
Dana Scully
Mulder!
Fox Mulder
Check the truck, Scully.
Dana Scully
Mulder, he works here.
Scene 10
Scene 10
Dana Scully
How did you know, Mulder, that the body was in the truck?
Fox Mulder
I imagined it.
Dana Scully
It's still no evidence that Padgett directed the killer.
Fox Mulder
What do you need, a signed work order? Of course he directed him.
Dana Scully
Mulder, you are making critical assumptions without any facts. What about time of death? What about-- what are you doing?
Fox Mulder
You're about to argue my usual side, aren't you?
Dana Scully
Why couldn't he have imagined it? Why couldn't he be in the killer's head?
Fox Mulder
You read what he wrote about you. Are you trying to tell me he got inside your head? That what I read is true?
Dana Scully
Mulder, of course not.
Fox Mulder
I don't know how they communicate. This is the only way I can think to catch him. Mr. Padgett? You can go. We apologize for our mistake. You're free to finish your book.
Phillip Padgett
Thank you. I made a mistake myself.
Fox Mulder
What's that, mr. Padgett?
Phillip Padgett
In my book, I'd written that agent Scully falls in love, but that's obviously impossible. Agent Scully is already in love.
Scene 11
Scene 11
Phillip Padgett
What are you doing here?
Ken Naciamento
You seem surprised to see me.
Phillip Padgett
Yes, completely.
Ken Naciamento
Why? I'm your character.
Phillip Padgett
What do you want?
Ken Naciamento
I'm here to help you finish.
Phillip Padgett
I can't figure out your motive.
Ken Naciamento
You imagine me so perfectly in every way-- so perfectly that you bring me to life. Why did you choose me?
Phillip Padgett
I needed a perfect crime. And she's a doctor. She'd be horrified by what you do.
Ken Naciamento
I'm horrified. I just want to know why I do it.
Phillip Padgett
So I could meet her.
Ken Naciamento
That's not a reason. It's an excuse.
Fox Mulder
Anything?
Dana Scully
No, he's just sitting there. Staring.
Ken Naciamento
Now what is this?
Phillip Padgett
A big mistake. I misjudged her character, her interest in me.
Ken Naciamento
Now we're on to something.
Phillip Padgett
She's only trying to get his attention, but doesn't know it.
Ken Naciamento
Mm-hmm. The old unconscious at work.
Phillip Padgett
I wanted to love her.
Ken Naciamento
No wonder you can't finish this book, Padgett. Why do I want their hearts?
Phillip Padgett
You tell me. Why do you do it?
Ken Naciamento
I'm your character. You tell me. My reason is your reason.
Phillip Padgett
I want to feel love.
Ken Naciamento
Mmm-- no. No. You had it right up to there. You were a tool of the truth. And when it finally arrives-- when I arrive, you don't want to see it.
Phillip Padgett
But what is the truth?
Ken Naciamento
Man imagines that he too... Can open up his heart and expose the burning passion-- the flames of charity. Like the creator himself, but... This is not in his power.
Phillip Padgett
But I have love in my heart.
Ken Naciamento
Yes, as a thief has riches, a usurer, money. You have it! But man's only power-- only true power... Is to destroy it.
Phillip Padgett
Then what's the end of my story?
Ken Naciamento
There can only be one true ending... If it is to be perfect.
Phillip Padgett
She dies?
Ken Naciamento
See? It almost writes itself.
Fox Mulder
What's he up to now?
Dana Scully
He just started typing again.
Fox Mulder
Now what? Anything?
[ door closes ]
Fox Mulder
Padgett! Freeze. Step away from the incinerator.
[ gasps ]
Fox Mulder
What do you think you're doing?
Phillip Padgett
Destroying my book.
Fox Mulder
Destroying evidence, you mean. Let me see what you wrote.
Phillip Padgett
I'll tell you. He kills her.
[ screaming ]
[ screaming ]
Fox Mulder
You came down here to give these instructions to your accomplice?
Phillip Padgett
No, he told me how it ends.
Fox Mulder
When?
Phillip Padgett
In my apartment.
Fox Mulder
You were alone up there.
[ gunshot ]
[ grunting ]
[ gasps ]
[ panting ]
[ sobbing ]
Phillip Padgett
A story can have only one true ending. Even as the stranger felt compelled to commit his final words to paper, he did it knowing they must never be read. To see the sum of his work was to see inside his own emptiness-- the heart of a destroyer, not a creator. And yet reflected back upon him, at last he could see his own ending. And in this final act of destruction... A chance to give what he could not receive.
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About this transcript
The dialogue comes from the official DVD subtitle track supplied by Boggsfiles. Speaker and scene attribution was cross-checked against character-labelled reference material. Subtitle wording is preserved while capitalization and spacing are standardized for easier reading.