"I'm the key figure in an ongoing government charade, the plot to conceal the truth about the existence of extraterrestrials. It's a global conspiracy, actually, with key players in the highest levels of power, that reaches down into the lives of every man, woman, and child on this planet. So, of course, no one believes me. I'm an annoyance to my superiors, a joke to my peers. They call me Spooky. Spooky Mulder, whose sister was abducted by aliens when he was just a kid and who now chases after little green men with a badge and a gun, shouting to the heavens or to anyone who will listen that the fix is in, that the sky is falling and when it hits it's gonna be the shit-storm of all time."
— Fox Mulder drunkenly summing up the entire series.
Mulder: After what you saw last night, after all you've seen, you can just walk away?
Scully: I have, I did, it's done.
Mulder: I need you on this, Scully.
Scully: You don't need me, Mulder. You never have. I've just held you back.
[Scully begins to leave.]
Scully: I gotta go.
[Hesitating for a while, Mulder then walks into the hallway to stop Scully from going.]
Mulder: You wanna tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience, you can, but you're wrong!
[Scully stops walking and turns around.]
Scully: Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rein you in, to shut you down.
Mulder: But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything... Scully, and you owe me nothing.
[Scully's eyes are watery.]
Mulder: I don't know if I wanna do this alone... I don't even know if I can ... and if I quit now, they win.
Scully: I have, I did, it's done.
Mulder: I need you on this, Scully.
Scully: You don't need me, Mulder. You never have. I've just held you back.
[Scully begins to leave.]
Scully: I gotta go.
[Hesitating for a while, Mulder then walks into the hallway to stop Scully from going.]
Mulder: You wanna tell yourself that so you can quit with a clear conscience, you can, but you're wrong!
[Scully stops walking and turns around.]
Scully: Why did they assign me to you in the first place, Mulder? To debunk your work, to rein you in, to shut you down.
Mulder: But you saved me! As difficult and as frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest... you've made me a whole person. I owe you everything... Scully, and you owe me nothing.
[Scully's eyes are watery.]
Mulder: I don't know if I wanna do this alone... I don't even know if I can ... and if I quit now, they win.
— Fox Mulder convinces Dana Scully not to leave the FBI due to their bond.
Well-Manicured Man: The virus is extra-terrestrial. We know very little about it except that it was the original inhabitant of this planet.
Mulder: A virus...
Well-Manicured Man: What is a virus, but a colonizing force that cannot be defeated? Living in a cave, underground, until it mutates... and attacks.
Mulder: This is what you've been conspiring to conceal? A disease?
Well-Manicured Man: No. For God's sake, you've got it all backwards! AIDS, the Ebola virus, on an evolutionary scale they are newborns. This virus walked the planet long before the dinosaurs.
Mulder: (Smiling in disbelief) What do you mean walked?
Well-Manicured Man: Your aliens, Agent Mulder. Your little green men arrived here millions of years ago. Those that didn't leave have been lying dormant underground since the last ice age in the form of an evolved pathogen, waiting to be reconstituted by the alien race when it comes to colonise the planet - using us as hosts. Against this we have no defence, nothing but a weak vaccine. Do you see why it was kept secret? Why even the best men, men like your father, could not let the truth be known. Until Dallas we believed the virus would simply control us, that mass infection would make us a slave race. Imagine our surprise when they began to gestate. My group has been working cooperatively with the alien colonists, facilitating programs like the one you saw, to give us access to the virus in the hope that we might be able to secretly develop a cure.
Mulder: To save your own asses.
Well-Manicured Man: Survival is the ultimate ideology. Your father wisely refused to believe this.
Mulder: But he sacrificed my sister. He let them take Samantha.
Well-Manicured Man: Without a vaccination, the only true survivors of the viral holocaust will be those immune to it - human alien clones. He allowed your sister to be abducted, to be taken to a cloning program, for one reason...
Mulder: So she would survive. As a genetic hybrid.
Well-Manicured Man: Your father chose hope over selfishness. Hope in the only future he had, his children. His hope for you was that you would uncover the truth about the project. That you would stop it, that you would fight the future.
Mulder: A virus...
Well-Manicured Man: What is a virus, but a colonizing force that cannot be defeated? Living in a cave, underground, until it mutates... and attacks.
Mulder: This is what you've been conspiring to conceal? A disease?
Well-Manicured Man: No. For God's sake, you've got it all backwards! AIDS, the Ebola virus, on an evolutionary scale they are newborns. This virus walked the planet long before the dinosaurs.
Mulder: (Smiling in disbelief) What do you mean walked?
Well-Manicured Man: Your aliens, Agent Mulder. Your little green men arrived here millions of years ago. Those that didn't leave have been lying dormant underground since the last ice age in the form of an evolved pathogen, waiting to be reconstituted by the alien race when it comes to colonise the planet - using us as hosts. Against this we have no defence, nothing but a weak vaccine. Do you see why it was kept secret? Why even the best men, men like your father, could not let the truth be known. Until Dallas we believed the virus would simply control us, that mass infection would make us a slave race. Imagine our surprise when they began to gestate. My group has been working cooperatively with the alien colonists, facilitating programs like the one you saw, to give us access to the virus in the hope that we might be able to secretly develop a cure.
Mulder: To save your own asses.
Well-Manicured Man: Survival is the ultimate ideology. Your father wisely refused to believe this.
Mulder: But he sacrificed my sister. He let them take Samantha.
Well-Manicured Man: Without a vaccination, the only true survivors of the viral holocaust will be those immune to it - human alien clones. He allowed your sister to be abducted, to be taken to a cloning program, for one reason...
Mulder: So she would survive. As a genetic hybrid.
Well-Manicured Man: Your father chose hope over selfishness. Hope in the only future he had, his children. His hope for you was that you would uncover the truth about the project. That you would stop it, that you would fight the future.
— The truth about the black oil and the motives behind Samantha's abduction is revealed.
Scully: I told OPR everything I know. What I experienced, the virus, how it's spread by the bees from pollen in transgenic crops.
[Mulder starts to walk away, with Scully following him.]
Mulder: You're wasting your time, Scully. They'll never believe you, not unless your story can be programmed, categorised, or easily referenced.
Scully: Well, then we'll go over their heads.
[Mulder turns towards Scully.]
Mulder: No. No. How many times have we been here before, Scully? Right here. So close to the truth and now with what we've seen and what we know to be right back at the beginning with nothing.
Scully: This is different, Mulder.
Mulder: No it isn't! You were right to want to quit! You were right to want to leave me! You should get as far away from me as you can! I'm not going to watch you die, Scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can.
Scully: I can't. I won't. Mulder, I'll be a doctor, but my work is here with you now. That virus that I was exposed to, whatever it is, it has a cure. You held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? Look...
[Scully holds Mulder's hand.]
Scully: If I quit now, they win.
[Mulder starts to walk away, with Scully following him.]
Mulder: You're wasting your time, Scully. They'll never believe you, not unless your story can be programmed, categorised, or easily referenced.
Scully: Well, then we'll go over their heads.
[Mulder turns towards Scully.]
Mulder: No. No. How many times have we been here before, Scully? Right here. So close to the truth and now with what we've seen and what we know to be right back at the beginning with nothing.
Scully: This is different, Mulder.
Mulder: No it isn't! You were right to want to quit! You were right to want to leave me! You should get as far away from me as you can! I'm not going to watch you die, Scully, because of some hollow personal cause of mine. Go be a doctor. Go be a doctor while you still can.
Scully: I can't. I won't. Mulder, I'll be a doctor, but my work is here with you now. That virus that I was exposed to, whatever it is, it has a cure. You held it in your hand. How many other lives can we save? Look...
[Scully holds Mulder's hand.]
Scully: If I quit now, they win.
— Dana Scully reaffirms Fox Mulder of their teamwork in seeking the truth.
