Episode written and directed by Chris Carter
Summary written by Shari Long
Internal dating: December 24th. Early on in the episode, Scully looks at her watch, and it's a little after 11:00 PM.
Teaser: The legend at the bottom of the screen readScully: "Christmas Eve. Somewhere in Maryland." Organ music is playing as we look at a huge, old mansion. There's a No Trespassing sign on the front gate. Mulder is sitting in his car, eating sunflower seeds and listening to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" on the radio. Soon a car pulls up on his right. It's Scully. Both she and Mulder roll their electric windows down. "I almost gave up on you." Mulder says.
Scully: Sorry. Checkout lines are worse than traffic on the 95. If I heard "Silent Night" once more, I was going to start taking hostages. What are we doing here?
Mulder: Stake out.
Scully: On Christmas Eve?
Mulder: It's an important date.
Scully: No kidding.
Mulder: Important to why we're here. Why don't you turn off your car and I'll give you the details.
Scully: Mulder, I've got wrapping to do. It's the night before Christmas.
Mulder: (He looks in her car and sees a the pile of wrapped gifts in the back) Oh. (Disappointed)
Scully gets in Mulder's car and tells him to give her the details of why they're out there. He tells her they're there to stake out the former occupants of the house. Scully again tries to beg off, saying she's got a 6 AM roll call under the Christmas tree with her family. Then he proceeds to tell Scully a ghost story.
He tells her of two star-crossed lovers who, on Christmas 1917, when the world was in the grip of despair thanks to the first World War, made a lover's pact so they would always be together and never have to spend another Christmas alone. They killed themselves and ever since have haunted that house. Scully is naturally skeptical, though she smiles at him and compliments him on the well-told story. He sounds incredulous when he says, "You don't believe in ghosts?"
Scully: That surprises you?
Mulder: 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 gotta go.
They both get out of the car, and Mulder starts up the hill toward the house. Scully asks where he's going and doesn't he have some place he needs to be. His reply as he continues to walk away is that he's just going to take a look... for her to give his best to the family. Scully stares after him for a moment, but finally turns away, saying to herself, "I'm not going to do it. It's my New Year's Resolution." She starts to get in the car, but can't find her keys. Looks in Mulder's car and then in her own, finally turning to stare at Mulder's retreating form.
Now at the house, Mulder opens the front door and turns on his flashlight. The inside is dark, dusty, and filled with cobwebs. Outside it's beginning to lighten and thunder as Mulder walks further into the foyer. Scully walking in startles him and he turns and asks her if she changed her mind. She wonders if he took her keys, which he denies doing. Mulder suggests maybe a ghost took them. They hear footsteps above them as the clock begins to strike 11 and a wind blows past them. The front door slams shut, Scully runs to it, trying to open it... to no avail.
Cue theme.
Act One:
Scully's still trying to open the front doors. Mulder says it sounds like someone is walking around upstairs.
Scully: Mulder, will you quit trying to scare me and help me get these doors open?
Mulder: There's someone walking around upstairs. There. Do you hear that?
Scully: Mulder, I really have to go.
Mulder: There's nothing to be afraid of.
Scully: I'm not afraid, OK? (She sounds as though she's trying to convince herself more than she is Mulder.)
Mulder: Ghosts are benevolent entities. (more thumping) Most of them. (Starts for stairs).
Scully: Look. I really have to get home. (Her voice shakes a bit.)
Scully looks at her watch and sees it's a couple of minutes past eleven. Then she notices that the grandfather clock in the hall is still keeping perfect time. Harpsicord music begins to play as the thunder rumbles outside. She turns toward a window in the next room and catches a glimpse of a woman wearing white standing there. The figure is gone a second later.
Pulling a flashlight from her pocket, she follows Mulder up the stairs. He's trying all the doors on the second floor, but they're all locked. Scully continues to follow him, launching into a long spiel regarding what must be happening, sounding very much like she's finding comfort in the familiar task of explaining things away:
Scully: "These are tricks that the mind plays. They are ingrained cliches from thousands of horror films. When we hear a sound we get a chill, when we see a shadow we allow ourselves to imagine something that an otherwise rational person would discount out of hand. The whole...Mulder?... the whole idea of a benevolent entity fits perfectly with what I'm saying. That a spirit would materialize or return for no other purpose than to show itself is silly and ridiculous and what it really shows is how silly and ridiculous we are in believing such things. I mean, that we could ignore all natural laws about the corporeal body that we witness these spirits clad in their own shabby outfits with the same old haircuts and hairstyles, never aging, never in search of more comfortable surroundings, it actually ends up saying more about the living than it does about the dead. Mulder, it doesn't take an advanced degree in psychology to understand the unconscious yearnings that these imaginings satisfy. The longing for immortality. The hope that there's something beyond this mortal coil. That, that we might never be long without our loved ones, these are powerful, powerful desires. They're the very essence of what make us human. The very essence of Christmas, actually."
They hear a door creak open and Mulder says, "Tell me you're not afraid." Scully finally admits she is, but that it's an "irrational fear." Scully walks toward the open door with Mulder shining his flashlight in front of her. She opens the door, finding a light on. She points out to Mulder that out in the car he said no one lived there and that when they were outside, there were no lights on.
Scully walks through the door, and Mulder goes to stand by her side. They're standing on the balcony of a huge room... a library. The furniture in the room is covered by white sheets, all the lights on the walls are on. There's a ladder leading down to the floor. Ornate bookshelves filled with books line all the walls except for the one which has a fireplace. There are oriental rugs on the floors. Mulder and Scully climb down the ladder, and Scully notices that the logs in the fireplace are still smouldering.
Mulder wonders aloud why anyone would 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.
The lights begin to flicker and finally go out. There are more thumping sounds. Then we hear a faint heartbeat just as Scully notices the floorboards are moving. She, clearly spooked, runs to a door and tries to open it. Mulder leans down and listens to the floor. Scully notices that the ladder they used to climb down from the balcony is no longer there. She turns around to find Mulder holding his flashlight under his face, trying to scare her. She screams, making him scream.
He tells her he thinks there's someone hiding under the floorboards, and taking a crowbar, begins to pry up the boards. With the first one up, they see a male corpse. Mulder pries up more boards and find a female corpse with red hair. They note that the woman was shot in the stomach and the man in the forehead. It dawns on Scully that the two bodies are dressed in the exact same clothes that she and Mulder are.
Mulder: You know, Scully...
Scully: ...that's us.
There's a flash of lightning and more thunder. Mulder and Scully jump up and run for the door. The room they run into looks exactly like the one they came from, including the bodies under the floor. They cross the room and go through another door, only to come out in the same room again. Thinking they have things figured out, Mulder goes through the door on the other side of the room, expecting to come out through the door he and Scully entered from. Scully waits by the door, but Mulder never comes through it. She calls for him. We hear doors slam. Mulder yells for Scully.
Act two:
Mulder's rattling the door knob, pounding on the door and calling for Scully. Getting nowhere he shoots the lock off and opens the door.... only to find a brick wall there. Lots of lightning and thunder. We hear an old man say, "Hey!". Mulder swings around to find a short, rotund man wearing a casual clothes and a hat that sits low on his forehead.
Mulder: Who are you?
Man: That's a question I should be asking, being this is my house you're standing in. This isn't one of those home invasions, is it?
Mulder: No
Man: Good. Do I need to show you the door?
Mulder: That's very funny.
Man: I wasn't making a joke.
Mulder: Have you looked at the door?
Man: Uh huh. I'm lookin' at it now. I see a door, w/the lock shot off. You gonna pay for that?
Mulder: It's a door w/a brick wall behind it.
Man: OK, sure.
Mulder: You're playing tricks on me.
Man: If I am, then I'm sorry. I don't know any tricks.
Mulder: That's a trick in itself. You been playing tricks on us since we got here.
Man: I take it we're not alone.
Mulder: Very funny, coming from a ghost.
Man: (laughs) You think I'm a ghost.... I've seen a lot of strange folks come thru here.
Mulder: Strange folks. Like those folks under the floorb... (looks to where the boards had been pried up. The floor no longer has a hole in it). How did you do that.
Man: I didn't do anything.
Mulder: There were corpses here. Bodies, buried under the floorboards.
Man: Why don't you have a seat, son.
Mulder's sitting in a chair with his face in his hands. The man asks him a series of questions to see if he's drunk or high. He says he's in the field of mental health and proceeds to psycho-analyze Mulder's type... those people who hunt ghosts.
Man: My specialty is in what I call Soul Prospectors. A cross-axial classification I've codified by extensive interaction w/visitors like yourself. I've found, you all tend to fall pretty much into the same category.
Mulder: And what category is that?
Man: Narcissistic, over-zealous, self-righteous egomaniac.
Mulder: That's a category.
Man: You kindly think of yourself as single-minded, but you're prone to obsessive-compulsiveness, workaholism, anti-socialism. Fertile fields for the descent into total wacko breakdown.
Mulder: (laughs) I don't think that pegs me exactly.
Man: Oh, really? Waving a gun around my house? Raving like a lunatic about some imaginary brick wall?
M (Looks over his shoulder. The open door and brick wall are still there)
Man: You've probably convinced yourself you've seen aliens. You know why you think you've seen the things you do?
Mulder: Because I have seen them?
Man: Because you're lonely, man. A lonely man. Chasing paramastabatory illusions that you believe give your life meaning and significance, which your pathetic social maladjustment makes impossible for you to find elsewhere. You probably consider yourself, passionate, serious, misunderstood. Am I right?
Mulder: Paramastabatory?
He tells Mulder that most people would rather stick their fingers in a wall socket than spend any time with him. Mulder protests that he's here with his partner, that she's somewhere in the house.
Man: Behind a brick wall? How'd you get her to come w/you? Steal her car keys? You know why you do it? Listen endlessly to her groaning rationalizations? Because you're afraid. Afraid of the loneliness. Am I right?
Mulder: I'd just like to find my partner.
Man: Good. Easy. Piece of cake. (gets up, walks through doorway where the brick wall had been for Mulder, stands on other side to look at him). Brick wall? (points to his head to indicate it's all in Mulder's mind) Or brick wall? Go ahead, change your life.
Mulder starts to follow him, but instead he slams into another brick wall in the doorway.
Next we find Scully in an identical library, calling for Mulder and trying to find her way out. A door opens and an older woman dressed in a white robe enters. Scully has her back to the woman, but upon turning around she lets out a blood-curdling scream. The woman screams in response as Scully backs away, fumbling for her gun.
Scully: Federal agent! I'm armed!
Woman: What? Scully: I'm armed! I'm armed! I'm armed! (finally pulls her gun)
Woman: You're what?
Scully: I'm armed!
Woman: You said you're a federal agent?
Scully: (holding her gun on the woman) Please, I'm a little on edge. Don't come any closer. My name is Special Agent Dana Scully and...I can, I can show you my ID.
Woman: Thank goodness, I thought you were a ghost.
Scully: I can assure you that I'm not, I'm uh...I got stuck in this room looking for my partner.
Woman: Oh, the gangly fellow with the (motions to her face) distinguished profile.
Scully: You've seen him?
Woman: With you. In the foyer. I thought he was a ghost, too.
Scully: That was you.
Woman: I sleepwalk some times. I thought maybe I dreamed it. But then, here you were again.
Scully: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. I uh...we found bodies.
Woman: Bodies? Where?
Scully: Right th...(motions to hole in floor which...isn't there anymore)
Woman: You look like you've seen a ghost. There are ghosts in this house, you know.
Scully begins questioning the woman as to Mulder's whereabouts, her hand holding the gun shaking. She says they found bodies under the floorboards, but when they look for them, there's no sign the floor has been disturbed. The woman begins to psychoanalyze Scully the same way her male counterpart had done with Mulder.
Woman: Oh, you poor child. You must have an awful small life, spending your Xmas eve running around chasing things you don't even believe in. (starts walking towards Scully)
Scully: Don't come any closer.
Woman: I can see it in your face, the fear. The conflicted yearnings. The subconscious desire to..find fulfillment through another. Intimacy through co-dependence.
Scully: What?
Woman: Maybe you repress the truth about why you're really here, pretending it's out of duty or loyalty. Unable to admit your dirty little secret. Your only joy in life is proving him wrong.
Scully tries to open a door again, but still there's a brick wall behind it. The woman startles Scully by getting up in her face and saying "Boo!" Scully jumps and turns around just as the male ghost walks through the door she's just found a brick wall behind. Scully holds the gun on him and questions him about Mulder. He says he'll be along in a moment. She motions the man over to the woman, and he hugs her as they laugh about how they've got Mulder and Scully going. Scully tells them to put up their hands. T
hey do, and the woman's robe falls open, revealing a gaping wound in her stomach. Scully is shocked. She looks at the wound and then with realization dawning on her, she approaches the man and slowly takes off his cap. The next shot is as if we're standing behind the ghosts looking at Scully. There's a hole right through the man's head and we can see Scully through it on the other side. Scully's eyes roll back in her head and she drops in a faint.
The ghosts discuss their methodScully:
Man: You see what we resorted to? (Something) cheap tricks. We used to be so good at this.
Woman: We used to have years to drive them mad. Now we get one night.
Man: This pop psychology approach is crap. All it does is annoy them. When's the last we actually haunted anyone?
Woman: When was the last time we had a good double murder? Not since the house was condemned.
Man: This is embarrassing. Amateur kid stuff.
Woman: Look, if we let our reputations slip, they're going to take us off the tourist literature. Last year no one even show up.
Man: Of all days, why did you pick Christmas? Why not Halloween?
Woman: (grabbing him by lapels and shaking him fondly): Now who's filled w/hopelessness and futility on Halloween? Christmas comes but once a year.
Man: Riiiiight. These two do seem pretty miserable. We need to show them just how lonely Christmas can be.
Woman: Well, that's the old Yuletide spirit!
More thunder and lightning as the ghosts hold each other and laugh, Scully lying in a heap beside them on the floor.
Act Three:
The show resumes with Mulder pulling himself up to the balcony level by standing on a chair. He has his flashlight in his mouth. The woman is standing down below him watching. She goes up another way to the balcony level and meets Mulder as he finally gets there. She asks him what he's doing and he says he's trying to get out. She tells him he can't get out that way. Mulder pushes past her and opens the door she came through... another brick wall. He turns around to see her going down the ladder which mysteriously reappeared and follows her down.
Mulder realizes that she's Lyda, one of the star-crossed lovers and begins to question her. Lyda begins to look for a book in the shelves, saying, "Let's see.... where is it?". As she points to individual books, they slide in and out all by themselves. Finally she finds the one she was looking for, "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas," and opens it to a chapter titled "The Star- Crossed Lovers". On the next page is a turn of the century picture of a young couple.
Lyda curls up in one of the wing-backed chairs in front of the fire and begins to try and convince Mulder that he's lonely and melancholy... that he came here with Scully to make a Lover's Pact. She opens her robe to show him the hole in her stomach, hoping to convince him that he should follow the same fate as she and Maurice.
Mulder: Why are you showing it to me?
Lyda: Well, it isn't like you're going to eating any Christmas ham is it?
Mulder: Are you trying to tell me Scully is going to shoot me? Scully is not going to shoot me.
Lyda: Suit yourself. But if you shoot first, the rest is an act of faith.
Mulder: (Intensely) I wouldn't shoot her.
Lyda: Maybe she shoots herself.
Mulder: I wouldn't let her.
Lyda: The bodies under floor. Maybe that was just some kind of Jungian symbolism. Maybe....there's a secret lovers' pact.
Mulder wistfully answers her that they aren't lovers. Lyda responds that this isn't an exact science either. She hands his gun to him that he hasn't realized was missing and tells him this is the last Christmas he'll ever spend alone.
Scully comes to in her library and tries again to open the door. Maurice appears sitting in one of the chairs and says he locked the doors for her protection. She demands he let her out.... that she's capable of shooting him.
Maurice: Glad to hear it. You may have to defend yourself against that crazy partner of yours.
Scully: What have you done with him?
Maurice: Kept him safe from his own manic devices, at least for now. Do you know why he brought you here, to this house?
Scully: Look, all I know is .. this is some bad dream. This is all in my head.
Maurice: Yet here you are, waving a gun at me. Like your partner.
(Knocking on the door. Mulder is yelling for Scully).
Maurice: Do you realize how seriously disturbed that man is? How dark and lonely? What he's capable of.
Scully: Mulder!
Maurice produces her car keys and insinuates that Mulder took them to trap her there so they could fulfill the Lover's Pact. Mulder begins to pound on the door and call for her. She grabs her keys from Maurice and tells him to open the door, which he goes to do... all the while telling her he's seen couple after couple kill themselves in this house. Scully says she doesn't believe him.
Maurice goes to the door and opens it. Mulder rushes in and immediately begins firing at Scully.
Act Four:
Mulder's still firing at Scully, but misses her every time. Scully's pointing her gun at him, backing away.
Mulder: There's no way out of here Scully. There's no going home.
Scully: Mulder, come on. Don't come any closer. Put the gun down. You're scaring me.
Mulder: What are you going to do, shoot me?
Scully: I'm not gonna shoot you. I don't want to shoot you.
Mulder: It's me or you, you or me. One of us has to do it.
Mulder finally takes deliberate aim and fires, hitting Scully in the stomach. She looks down with the most horrified, shocked expression on her face and sees a large bullet wound, blood spilling out onto her white blouse. Her mouth gaping, she looks back at Mulder and then collapses onto the floor. He stands over her saying, "Merry Christmas, Scully." and then puts the gun to his own head. The camera angle shifts and we see it's actually Lyda who shot Scully and is holding the gun to her head. Maurice rushes in and grabs Mulder (this is who we see again) from the back, dragging his hand with the gun away from his head. Then we see Lyda again as Maurice pulls her out of the room.
Scully's lying on the floor bleeding when the real Mulder rushes in and finds her. He's saying her name and lifts her head in his hands. Scully says over and over that she didn't believe that he'd do it. That he would. (shoot). She raises her gun and shoots him in the lower chest. When he falls we see that it's Lyda lying in the floor beside him and not Scully.
The real Scully begins crawling on her stomach out of the room, leaving a trail of blood smeared on the hallway floor. Mulder makes his way down the stairs, holding himself where he was shot. The partners lie on opposite ends of the hallway, pointing their guns at each other, gasping in pain. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is playing again.
Mulder: Scully?
Scully: (stops her efforts to get to the front door) Are you afraid, Mulder? I am.
Mulder: I am, too. You should have thought of this.
Scully: You should have.
Mulder: You shot me first!
Scully: I didn't shoot you! You shot me.
Mulder looks back at Scully and then feels of his blood-soaked t-shirt, realizing that he's not shot. He stands and goes over to her, telling her she's not shot and to get up. He helps her up and they step out on the front porch, suddenly finding themselves no longer covered with blood. As one, they run from the house... jumping into their separate cars and driving away.
Back in the house, Lyda and Maurice sit in the chairs in front of a roaring fire. The clock strikes midnight as they talk over their failure to win Mulder and Scully over:
Lyda: Well, it's Christmas.
Maurice: One for the books.
Lyda: We almost had those two.
Maurice: Almost had 'em. (chuckling)
Lyda: Two such lonely souls.
Maurice: We can't let our failures haunt us.
Lyda: I 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 then their images disappear.
Cut to the older version of "A Christmas Carol" as Scrooge is laughing over his change of heart. Mulder is sitting on his couch looking bored and dejected. There's a knock at the door. Mulder turns off the tv and goes to open it, finding Scully there. She couldn't sleep and seems bothered by something. She asks to come in and Mulder lets her, asking if wasn't she supposed to be opening presents with her family.
Scully: None of that really happened out there tonight. That was all in our heads, right?
Mulder: Must have been.
Scully: Not that, uh, not that the joy in life is proving you wrong.
Mulder: When have you proved me wrong?
Scully: Well, why else would you want me out there?
Mulder: You didn't want to be there? (as though he's realizing how he sounds) Oh, no, that's um, self-righteous and narcissistic of me to say, isn't it?
Scully: (quietly )No, I mean, maybe I did want to be out there w/you.
Mulder walks away from her and goes to pick up a present lying on top of the TV. It's about a 10 inch long cylindrical object, wrapped with red paper with Santas on it, tied at both ends with red ribbons.
Mulder: I know we said that we weren't going to exchange gifts, but ah...I gotcha a little something...
Scully grins at him Scully: (shyly but obviously happy) Mulder...
Mulder: (grinning back at her ) Merry Christmas.
Scully: (sheepishly ) Well, I got you a little something, too. (reaches into her pocket and pulls out a flat object about the size of a videotape, also wrapped in Christmas paper with a green ribbon)
Mulder chuckles and shakes the present, which makes the same sound a video makes when shaken. Scully gets this very childlike grin on her face, and they rush to sit on the couch to open their presents.
As the camera pulls back, we see them through Mulder's window... tearing into the gifts, but the camera doesn't linger long enough for us to see what they really were. Instead it fades to black as the snow falls and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" plays once again.