Phillip Padgett quotes from The X-Files

Phillip Padgett

(voiceover, as Scully looks at the charm left under Mulder's door) 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 DNA 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.

Phillip Padgett

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 marshall 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.

Phillip Padgett

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.

Phillip Padgett

(voiceover) 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. But if she'd predictably aroused her sly partner's suspicions Special Agent Dana Scully had herself become... simply aroused.

Phillip Padgett

(voiceover) 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?

Phillip Padgett

I often come here to look at this painting. It's called "My Divine Heart" after the miracle of Saint 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.

Scully

Why are you telling me this?

Phillip Padgett

You came here specifically to see this painting, didn't you?

Scully

Yes. How did you know that?

Phillip Padgett

I saw you enter. The way you knew right where it was.

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.

Scully

You imagined it.

Phillip Padgett

Yes.

Scully

(dryly) 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'd take away from your visit, this painting's religious symbolism would have left a subconscious impression jogged by the gift you received this morning.

Phillip Padgett

I have to admit to a secret attraction. (she looks away and rolls her eyes) I'm sorry I didn't include a note explaining that but you didn't know me then.

Scully

Yeah, and I don't know you now and I don't care to.

Phillip Padgett

I see this is making you uncomfortable (she rolls her eyes, like "obviously") and I'm sorry. It's just that I'm taken with you. That never happens to me. We're alike that way.

Phillip Padgett

Best not to question it. (pause) See? You are curious about me.

Scully

Well, you lead a curious life.

Phillip Padgett

It's not so different from yours I imagine - lonely.

Scully

(looks away) Loneliness is a choice.

Phillip Padgett

I made a mistake myself.

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. (looking at Mulder) Agent Scully is already in love.

Phillip Padgett

But what is the truth?

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.

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?

There can only be one true ending if it is to be perfect.

Phillip Padgett

She dies?

See? It almost writes itself.