Transcripts / Season 6 / Two Fathers

Season 6 · Episode 11

Two Fathers

Character-labelled dialogue prepared from the official DVD subtitle track.

Production code6ABX11Original airdate · February 7, 1999

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256 dialogue entries

Scene 01

Opening scene

[ machinery beeping, metal clattering ]

[ beeping continues ]

[ beeping ]

[ instrument whirring ]

Doctor 1

Dr. Openshaw, congratulations. Your work-- it's completed. You should see her. Twenty-five years. She must seem like an old friend.

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

Yes.

Doctor 1

We're, uh, going out to celebrate. If you'd like to come--

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

No. You go on ahead.

[ gasping ]

Unidentified speaker

[ screaming ] oh, god!

[ men screaming ]

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

No!

[ grunts, groans ]

Scene 02

Cigarette-Smoking Man

This is the end. I never thought I'd hear myself say those words after all these years. When you put your life into something, build it, protect it, the end is as unimaginable as your own death... Or the death of your children. I could never have scripted the events that led us to this. None of us could. All the brilliant men, the secret that we kept so well. It happened simply, like this. We had a perfect conspiracy... With an alien race-- aliens who were coming to reclaim this planet... And to destroy all human life. Our job was to secretly prepare the way... For their invasion, to create for them a slave race of human/alien hybrids. They were good plans, right plans, kept secret for over 50 years, ever since the crash at Roswell, kept secret from men like Fox Mulder. Plans that would have worked... Had not a rebel alien race come to destroy them, had not my own son chosen betrayal... Or chosen to betray more wisely.

Scene 03

Jeffrey Spender

A.d. Skinner, I-- I didn't hear the elevator. I was working here.

Walter Skinner

Working on what, agent Spender?

Jeffrey Spender

Progress report on the X-Files.

Walter Skinner

Progress report to who?

Jeffrey Spender

Just a file.

Walter Skinner

I wasn't aware that you'd made any progress. In the months since your assignment, I've received but one memorandum. Are you planning to hit me all at once?

Jeffrey Spender

Uh, it's been slow going.

Walter Skinner

The truth is, your purpose is not to make any progress, isn't it? The truth is, you have no interest in the X-Files... Beyond a certain personal case. Your mother's abduction.

Jeffrey Spender

Alleged abduction.

Walter Skinner

That's what I'm here about.

[ fire extinguisher spraying ]

Scene 04

POTOMAC YARD,

Jeffrey Spender

What happened here?

Walter Skinner

[ Skinner ] no one knows yet. A group of people were burned alive here. And a man's on life support. Only your mother survived.

Jeffrey Spender

Where is she? Where is she?

Walter Skinner

They've got her outside.

Jeffrey Spender

Mom. Mom. It's me, Jeffrey. Mom, what happened to you? You've been gone so long, I thought I'd never see you again.

Cassandra Spender

Oh, don't cry, honey.

Jeffrey Spender

Where have you been? What did they do to you?

Cassandra Spender

I need to talk to someone.

Jeffrey Spender

You can tell me.

Cassandra Spender

I need to speak to agent Mulder.

Jeffrey Spender

I don't want him talking with her.

Walter Skinner

Why?

Jeffrey Spender

He's forbidden from the X-Files. He's to stay out of this.

Walter Skinner

She's asking for him.

Jeffrey Spender

She's my mother.

Walter Skinner

What are you afraid of?

Jeffrey Spender

Mulder filling her head with alien-abduction nonsense.

Walter Skinner

Are you afraid of the truth?

Jeffrey Spender

I want to know who did this to her and why. That's all I want.

Walter Skinner

Then why not use every resource available to you?

Jeffrey Spender

I'll send you a progress report.

Scene 05

Cigarette-Smoking Man

My son refused to believe that his mother had been abducted, though it had been going on for years. Even after I schemed to put him in charge of the X-Files, where Fox Mulder had amassed so much evidence of our secret plans, he still couldn't bring himself to accept the possibility of alien life. When he did come to believe, when the facts became so glaring, he turned not to me, his father, but to the man I'd ruined, the man I'd chosen for him to replace.

Scene 06

Basketball Player

Hey, milk, let's play ball. Yo, homestyle, cough up the rock.

Man

Wanna rotate in?

Third Basketball Player

[ man yells ] yeah.

Fox Mulder

Game.

Basketball Player

Oh, nah, nah. It don't work like that.

Fox Mulder

Hey, homegirl. Word up.

Dana Scully

Mulder, it's my distinct impression that you just cheated... And that you're not coming in again today.

Fox Mulder

Scully, I got game.

Dana Scully

Yeah, you got so much game, I'm wondering if you have any work left in you.

Fox Mulder

No, I'm ready to j-o-b, just not on some jagoff shoeshine tip.

Dana Scully

No jagoff shoeshine tip?

Fox Mulder

No background checking jagoff shoeshine tip.

Dana Scully

About your j-o-b, Mulder, somebody's been trying very hard to reach you by phone, somebody who wants you back at the FBI a.s.a.p.

Fox Mulder

About what?

Dana Scully

About an x file.

[ phone rings ]

Scene 07

FBI HEADQUARTERS

Fox Mulder

You looking for work, agent Spender? 'cause if you are, I got a whole pile in that middle drawer I'd love to shove down someone's throat.

Jeffrey Spender

I was writing you a note. You know why I'm here.

Fox Mulder

They found your mother.

Jeffrey Spender

She wants to talk to you.

Fox Mulder

I didn't hear the magic word.

Jeffrey Spender

Look, I'm not gonna get down on my knees here.

Fox Mulder

Are you asking me?

Jeffrey Spender

My mother's been gone for almost a year. She turns up in a train car where she's been operated on by doctors who were burned alive. I just want the truth.

Fox Mulder

Well, the truth is out there, agent Spender. Maybe you should find it for yourself.

[ machinery beeping ]

[ air hissing ]

Scene 08

ST.MARK'S MEDICAL CENTER

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

I expected you sooner.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

I've been at the train yard. I'm trying to tidy things up.

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

The overkill will be hard to divert attention from, but not as hard as from Cassandra. You have no idea, do you? Cassandra is a success.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

No. She can't be. Not now.

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

I had prepared a syringe for her, as agreed. But the rebels came.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

They saved her to expose us.

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

She's the key to everything.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

I won't let her out of our hands.

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

They will run medical tests on her. It's only a matter of time. Cassandra must be terminated. They will come and question me.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

I know. I'm sorry.

[ air hissing ]

[ beeping faster ]

Dr. Eugene Openshaw

A man should never live long enough to see his children-- or his work-- destroyed.

[ fast beeping continues ]

[ beeping faster ]

[ phone ringing ]

Scene 09

SILVER SPRINGS, MARYLAND

Second Elder

Hello.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Have you heard the news?

Second Elder

No.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

The rebels have struck.

Second Elder

Where?

Cigarette-Smoking Man

In virginia... During one of our medical procedures. They killed the project doctors, burned them.

Second Elder

All of them?

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Yes. Dr. Openshaw died in the hyperbaric chamber this evening.

Second Elder

My god.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

I've called an emergency meeting of the syndicate. Only the future rides on our response.

Second Elder

I'll be on a plane.

[ doorbell rings ]

Second Elder

Dr. Openshaw.

Man Who Looks Like Dr. Openshaw

I've come to see you.

[ grunting ]

[ screaming ]

[ keyboard clicking ]

Scene 10

9:42 PM

Dana Scully

-didn't expect to find you here. -

Fox Mulder

Where'd you expect to find me?

Dana Scully

I thought agent Spender offered you an x file assignment.

Fox Mulder

It wasn't exactly an offer.

Dana Scully

But isn't it just the opportunity you've been waiting for?

Fox Mulder

It is an opportunity made to order for the powers that be.

Dana Scully

You think it's a setup?

Fox Mulder

This is exactly the kind of mistake they've been waiting for to come down on me full force.

Dana Scully

But agent Spender asked you.

Fox Mulder

Like I said, not exactly.

Dana Scully

We've seen this before. Bodies set aflame with no conclusive cause of combustion. Mulder.

Fox Mulder

I know.

Dana Scully

I was with Cassandra Spender when she disappeared. You sat with me while I was under hypnosis when I spoke of just these sorts of details.

Fox Mulder

I have no doubt that what Cassandra would tell us... Would expose more than just what happened to her.

Dana Scully

I was taken to one of those train cars. I was tested just like Cassandra. What if what she tells us could-could expose... Who did this to me? Mulder, agent Spender doesn't have to know.

[ door opens ]

Scene 11

Cassandra Spender

Oh, my god. My god.

Dana Scully

Cassandra.

Cassandra Spender

Oh, Dana. Oh, my god.

Dana Scully

It's so good to see you. We're old friends. If, uh, if I can get ahold of a wheelchair, you want to go out for some fresh air?

Cassandra Spender

I don't need a wheelchair. But I am dying for a cigarette. It feels so good to walk. The doctors don't know what to say. I told them they wouldn't believe how it happened, and they wouldn't. No, I'm not gonna tell anybody this time, because nobody believes you anyway. They want to hear it, but they just think you're crazy. Guess I wouldn't believe it either... Except that it happened to me. No, I'm only gonna tell somebody I can trust... And who can do something about it. I was hoping, when I saw you, that agent Mulder... Was going to be coming in the door behind you.

Dana Scully

I've got a surprise for you, Cassandra.

Cassandra Spender

Agent Mulder?

Fox Mulder

Shh! Shh, shh, shh!

Cassandra Spender

Oh! Oh, my god. Oh, my god! I think I'm going to pee the floor.

Fox Mulder

Don't-- don't do that. [ laughing ] look at you.

Cassandra Spender

I told you about their power. You said you didn't believe it.

Fox Mulder

Well, I had reasons for doubt when I met you, Cassandra.

Cassandra Spender

You just doubted yourself. You were just doubting you'd ever see her again, weren't you? Your sister.

Dana Scully

Agent Mulder told me he believed he saw his sister last year.

Cassandra Spender

That wasn't her, agent Mulder.

Fox Mulder

Then where is she?

Cassandra Spender

Out there, with them. The aliens.

[ striking match ]

Dana Scully

Cassandra, you were found in a train car. You'd been operated on by doctors.

Cassandra Spender

Yes, that's right.

Dana Scully

And these are the doctors who cured you?

Cassandra Spender

No, the aliens cured me. The doctors were working with the aliens. That's what I wanted to tell you.

Fox Mulder

What?

Cassandra Spender

I told you that the aliens were here to do good... And that I was being used as an oracle to spread the word. Only now I know what the aliens are here for, and it isn't good.

Fox Mulder

What are they here for?

Cassandra Spender

To wipe us off the planet. They're taking over the universe. They're infecting all other life-forms... With a black substance called purity. It's their life force. It's what they're made of.

Fox Mulder

It's the virus, the black oil.

Dana Scully

But, Cassandra, the doctors weren't infected. They were burned.

Cassandra Spender

By another race of aliens. A rebel force that are mutilating their faces... So that they won't be infected. This is what I couldn't tell my son Jeffrey.

Dana Scully

-why couldn't you tell Jeffrey? -

Cassandra Spender

Because he doesn't believe me. Even though his life is in danger by these same rebel aliens.

Dana Scully

Spender's life's in danger?

Cassandra Spender

He's in with the men that have been working with the alien colonists... For 50 years.

Dana Scully

Working to do what?

Cassandra Spender

Whatever it is they did to me... And to you, Dana.

Fox Mulder

And you know who these men are?

Cassandra Spender

Oh, sure. One of them's my ex-husband, Jeffrey's father.

Scene 12

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Cassandra was beginning to realize her role in the greatest science project... That man had ever known. She was the center of 50 years of work, the key to all of our plans-- something even my colleagues didn't realize yet. I killed to keep them unknowing. I killed dr. Openshaw so they wouldn't discover her... When it's Cassandra I should have killed, Cassandra who needed to die. I couldn't do it. With all the blood on my hands, I couldn't kill the mother of my own son, a woman I never even loved. My colleagues never knew, focused as they were on the new threat-- the faceless alien rebels who'd burned our doctors alive. But my colleagues had become old men, blind to the fact that the faceless rebels... Already held the upper hand, that they'd used their powers of disguise to infiltrate our group.

Scene 13

Alex Krycek

Rebels have attacked and burned project facilities... In New Mexico and the southwest. The medical staff at our Arizona research facility's been slain. The train-car deaths cost us. Work on the human/alien hybrids will suffer the death of dr. Openshaw.

First Elder

What do they want?

Cigarette-Smoking Man

To expose our enterprise, everything we've worked for.

Third Elder

Well, some hotshot reporter's gonna put the pieces together, not to mention law enforcement.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

We have our control on the federal agencies. Our new man at the FBI's very capable of diverting attention.

Man Who Looks Like The Second Elder

Why not side with the rebels? Join their alien resistance.

Third Elder

It's an option.

Alex Krycek

It's an option you declined long ago. Resistance was futile then. Why would it be any less so now? That's why you voted against it, against men like bill Mulder. Collaboration has allowed you to prepare, to stall colonization. How close are you to developing a human/alien hybrid? That alone ensures your survival.

Man Who Looks Like The Second Elder

As slave laborers for the aliens.

Alex Krycek

What about your vaccine? By collaborating, you bought yourself time... To secretly develop a way to combat the aliens, to fight the future.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Alex, enough! For 50 years we've worked on this project. Fifty years since Roswell. We can't sacrifice ourselves for every new threat, can we now?

Scene 14

Dana Scully

Why risk getting caught here?

Fox Mulder

They're gonna be monitoring any work on our machines, in or out. We need access to files on a name that'll raise flags.

[ beeping ]

Dana Scully

Maybe she was making it all up.

[ computer beeps ]

Fox Mulder

Smokey's got a name.

[ typing ]

[ beeps ]

Walter Skinner

Get up from the desk. Get up, turn the computer off, grab whatever you took or printed out and give it to me. Let's go, agents. They're coming.

Fox Mulder

Who?

Walter Skinner

Just go.

Jeffrey Spender

Assistant director. I'll assume you came down to apprehend these agents for unauthorized entry... Into my office. I'll make sure it's duly noted in the report of their dismissal.

Scene 15

Jeffrey Spender

I've done as you've asked. Mulder's been brought up to his superiors. He and his partner will be processed out of the FBI I've done as you've asked. Now, I would like you to do for me.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Do for you?

Jeffrey Spender

I think I'm entitled.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

To?

Jeffrey Spender

The truth. The truth about my mother. She won't tell me.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Because you won't believe her. Maybe you won't believe me. Maybe it's better not to know.

Jeffrey Spender

Look, I need to know.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Show me that you're capable of handling the responsibility that comes with this knowledge.

Jeffrey Spender

Don't try me, old man!

Cigarette-Smoking Man

I gave you responsibility. I gave you a position. I gave you the things that you couldn't get yourself, and you can't do the job.

Jeffrey Spender

Keeping Fox Mulder down is not a job! It's your dirty work.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

You pale to Fox Mulder.

Scene 16

Dana Scully

Bet you're curious about c.g.b.

Fox Mulder

What's that?

Dana Scully

C.g.b. Spender. His name-- cigarette-smoking man.

Fox Mulder

What's it stand for?

Dana Scully

It's an alias, as far as I can figure. One of hundreds.

Fox Mulder

Scully, wanna go one-on-one? We got nothing but time now that we're on administrative leave.

Dana Scully

Aren't you curious what I've got in the box? Everything I could find on him.

Fox Mulder

Nothing you could ever find would be accurate or credible.

Dana Scully

Maybe. But there's a picture you're gonna want to see.

Fox Mulder

That's c.g.b. Spender... And my father.

Dana Scully

It was taken in 1973. I traced the connection to something they worked on together for 25 years... At the state department-- a highly classified project. There's more, if you're ready. Cassandra Spender is, indeed, the mother of agent Jeffrey Spender... And the ex-wife of c.g.b. Spender. But there's something that you're gonna be surprised to find out. She was first abducted in 1973... On the night of november 27.

Fox Mulder

That's the same night as my sister.

Dana Scully

And there are other names connected to c.g.b. Spender and your father-- phds, doctors, one a nobel winner for early works in genetics, a dr. Eugene openshaw. He was the doctor that was found amongst the burn victims... Clinging to life beside Cassandra Spender. He died the next day in the hospital... Before he was questioned.

Fox Mulder

The project is still going on.

Dana Scully

Yeah.

Scene 17

Cigarette-Smoking Man

If Mulder hadn't known of his father's history with me, he was fueled now with names and dates and... Certainties. I couldn't stop him any longer-- stop him from learning our sins, his father's and my own. The truth was out there... Fatally exposed. I had one last hope, one chance to preserve my legacy.

Scene 18

DOWNTOWN WASHINGTON

Jeffrey Spender

I waited, like you asked.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Good. I'm pleased. I was doubtful after our last meeting.

Jeffrey Spender

You have a new job for me?

Cigarette-Smoking Man

Yes. I may have been unduly harsh. You deserve a fighting chance... To prove your father wrong.

Jeffrey Spender

What is it?

Cigarette-Smoking Man

A weapon. A man has infiltrated the group that I work with. That's to kill him.

Jeffrey Spender

I don't understand.

Cigarette-Smoking Man

He's pretending to be a member of our group, disguising himself as a man he's already killed. You will greet him as that man. Engage him in conversation, then put that in the back of his neck. You can do it, Jeffrey.

Alex Krycek

Watch where you point that.

[ doorbell ringing ]

Scene 19

Jeffrey Spender

Sir, my name is Jeffrey Spender. My father sent me to see you. I have a message from the group.

Man Who Looks Like The Second Elder

They've changed their minds?

Jeffrey Spender

That's what I'm here about.

Man Who Looks Like The Second Elder

Sit, please. What have you to tell me?

Jeffrey Spender

Something I've been entrusted with. It's, uh-- it's a name, actually, one that will have meaning for you. I'm sorry.

[ grunting ]

[ groans ]

[ sighs ]

[ panting ]

Scene 20

Fox Mulder

Thanks for coming. I know it's late. You've been forbidden to have any contact with us.

Dana Scully

Sir.

Walter Skinner

You say Cassandra Spender's life is in danger.

Fox Mulder

Her life's been in danger going on 30 years, just not the way I think it is now.

Walter Skinner

In danger from who?

Fox Mulder

Men who have conducted medical experiments... In what began as a secret government project, but what is now the most private global enterprise.

Walter Skinner

Enterprising to do what?

Fox Mulder

To develop alien/human hybrids that will survive the viral apocalypse... When aliens colonize the earth.

Walter Skinner

And I suppose you have proof of this?

Fox Mulder

Files that agent Scully dug up that make the right connections to dr. Eugene openshaw, to my sister, to my father, to agent Spender's father.

Walter Skinner

Agent Spender's father?

Fox Mulder

The smoking man.

Walter Skinner

What?

Dana Scully

It's true, sir. We have documented evidence.

Walter Skinner

Then you believe this, agent Scully? This whole account?

Fox Mulder

I know that agent Scully has her doubts about the purposes of these experiments. I also know that she, herself, believes she was a test subject when she was abducted.

Walter Skinner

If Cassandra Spender's life is in danger, why not Scully's?

Fox Mulder

I believe Cassandra Spender represents the final stages of these experiments-- that she may very well be the first successful alien/human hybrid.

Walter Skinner

What I don't understand is if she was a success, why is her life threatened?

Fox Mulder

Because... The men who created her would rather kill her... Than let her expose the enterprise.

Walter Skinner

She's under 24-hour guard.

Fox Mulder

Assigned by agent Spender?

Scene 21

Alex Krycek

You've never seen one before, have you? It's shocking at first-- the acceptance of the idea. It's something you thought only children... And fools believed in. It undermines your beliefs... In yourself, in the world. But then you come to understand.

Jeffrey Spender

Understand what?

Alex Krycek

Well, the responsibility that this knowledge demands by the men who have it. The great sacrifice... By great men like... Your father.

Jeffrey Spender

What sacrifice?

Alex Krycek

The sacrifice of your mother.

Jeffrey Spender

What do you know about that?

Alex Krycek

Just that she's been the subject of an experiment for 25 years.

Jeffrey Spender

My father's involved in that? Is he?

Alex Krycek

Your father directs the experiments.

Jeffrey Spender

So I'm protecting her now so the experiments can continue?

Alex Krycek

That's why he put you on the X-Files. That's why your father sent you here tonight. You're protecting the project, Jeffrey, making the sacrifices... So that you can be a great man too.

Jeffrey Spender

I'll be my own great man.

Scene 22

Cigarette-Smoking Man

I've trusted no one. Treachery is the inevitable result of all affairs. Every man believes he has his own good reason. I have little doubt of my son's disloyalty to me. Certainly he led Mulder and Scully to us. His mother must know by now her central role in the grand plan, that she's as much alien as human. Do you wonder why I've chosen you? You've never betrayed me. Now I need someone to trust.

Diana Fowley

I'll help you. It's not too late.

[ door opens ]

[ door closes ]

Scene 23

Walter Skinner

Cassandra? Ms. Spender?

Jeffrey Spender

Where's my mother?

Walter Skinner

You tell me, agent Spender.

Jeffrey Spender

Where's the guard? I-I had a guard posted here.

Walter Skinner

I got here, and she was gone.

Jeffrey Spender

He took her.

Walter Skinner

Who? Agent Spender?

[ frantic knocking ]

Fox Mulder

[ panting ] Cassandra.

Scene 24

Cassandra Spender

I can't believe I found you.

Dana Scully

How did you find us? Cassandra?

Fox Mulder

How did you get here? How'd you get out of your room?

Dana Scully

Where'd you get your clothes?

Cassandra Spender

Agent Scully, agent Mulder, you cannot let them find me.

[ knocking continues ]

Cassandra Spender

Stop it. Let go! You cannot let them have me. You have got to kill me now! If you don't kill me, it all starts! There won't be any stopping it.

[ frantic knocking ]

Cassandra Spender

I am the one! You have to shoot me, please!

[ knocking continues ]

Dana Scully

Mulder, what are you doing?

Fox Mulder

Stand away, Scully.

Dana Scully

Mulder!

[ knocking continues ]

Dana Scully

Mulder, we have to protect her.

[ harsh pounding on door ]

Dana Scully

Mulder. Mulder! [ pounding continues ]

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.