What is the point of all of this? To destroy a man who seeks the truth, or to destroy the truth so no man can seek it? Either way, you lose.
“The Truth (2)” · Season 9, Episode 20
In this episode: Fox Mulder (5), Dana Scully (5), Cigarette Smoking Man (2), John Doggett (1), Melvin Frohike (1), Monica Reyes (1), John Fitzgerald Byers (1), Richard Langly (1)
(to Kersh and the panel) Yes.. I'd like to congratulate you - On succeeding where so many before you have failed. A bullet between the eyes would have been preferable to this charade. But I've learned to pretend over the past nine years - to pretend that my victories mattered only to realize that no one was keeping score. To realize that liars do not fear the truth if there are enough liars.. That the devil is just one man with a plan, but evil, true evil, is a collaboration of men, which is what we have here today. If I am a guilty man, my crime is in daring to believe; that the truth will out and that no one lie can live forever.. I believe it still. Much as you try to bury it, the truth is out there. Greater than your lies, the truth wants to be known. You will know it. It'll come to you, as it's come to me, faster than the speed of light. (Notices the ghosts of Krycek & X standing behind the panel of judges) ..You may believe yourselves rid of your headache now, and maybe you are... but you've only done it by cutting off your own heads.
(answering phone) Yeah... I'll tell her. (He hangs up)
Who was it?
Skinner.
..Agent Doggett?
Death by lethal injection.
(Mulder is urinating at the roadside) Hey hotshot. Might have the common courtesy of doing your little business downwind.
Oh boy.
Why don't you finish draining the little lizard then we'll talk?
We're very worried about you.
It's craziness, man. Turn around.
Just hang a big U-ie and never look back.
I can't.
Why risk perfect happiness, Mulder? Why risk your lives?
Because I need to know the truth.
You already know the truth.
I need to know if I can change it.
Change it?
For crying out loud. All you're going to do is get yourself killed.
Mulder! What are you doing?
(The Lone Gunmen have vanished) I'll be right with you, Scully.
..What's the matter, Agent Mulder? You come to see the wise man but you look as if you've seen a ghost.
You're not a wise man, you're a dead man. Just like Krycek and X.
You see a dead man, Agent Scully?
I hoped and prayed you were dead, you chain-smoking, son of a bitch.
You waste your time. Ask Mulder - He knows the futility of hope and prayers. He knows the truth now.. You have told her the truth, haven't you, Fox? I helped you find it.
You didn't help me - You sent me to that government facility knowing exactly what I'd find.
And now you've refused to speak it. Not to Scully, not to anyone, even though it would have saved your life. You damn me for my secrets, but you're afraid to speak the truth.
You call me afraid? Look at you sitting alone in the dark like a fossil.
It's the final refuge. The last place to hide from those who are insidiously taking power now.
Who?
The aliens.. They fear this place, its geology. Magnetite, like that which brought down the original UFO in Roswell. Indian wisemen realized this over 2,000 years ago. They hid here, and watched their own culture die. The original shadow government.
Leaves me to tell you what Mulder's afraid to, Agent Scully.
Come on, let's go.
It's a scary story. Want to come sit on my lap?
..You don't scare me.
My story's scared every president since Truman in '47.
(To Scully) You don't have to hear this.
No, I wanna hear it, Mulder.
Ten centuries ago the Mayans were so afraid that their calendar stopped on the exact date that my story begins. December 22, the year 2012. The date of the final alien invasion. Mulder can confirm the date - He saw it at Mount Weather.. where our own 'Secret Government' will be hiding when it all comes down.
Yeah, you smile... feeling drunk with power. The power to do nothing.
My power comes from telling you. Seeing your powerlessness hearing it.. They wanted to kill you, Fox. I protected you all these years.. waiting for this moment... to see you broken. Afraid. Now you can die.
What are you thinking? Mulder?
I'm thinking... I'm a guilty man. I've failed in every respect. I deserve the harshest punishment for my crimes.
You don't believe that.
I believe.. that I sat in a motel room like this with you when we first met.. and I tried to convince you of the truth. And in that respect, I succeeded, but... in every other way... I've failed.
You don't believe that either.
Mm. I've been chasing after monsters with a butterfly net. You heard the man — the date's set. I can't change that.
You wouldn't tell me. Not because you were afraid or broken.. but because you didn't want to accept defeat.
Well, I was afraid of what knowing would do to you. I was afraid that it would crush.. your spirit.
Why would I accept defeat? Why would I accept it, if you won't? ..Mulder, you say that you've failed, but you only fail if you give up. And I know you — you can't give up. It's what I saw in you when we first met. It's what made me follow you... why I'd do it all over again.
And look what it's gotten you.
And what has it gotten you? Not your sister. Nothing that you've set out for. But you won't give up, even now. You've always said that you want to believe. But believe in what Mulder? If this is the truth that you've been looking for, then what is left to believe in?
I want to believe that... the dead are not lost to us. That they speak to us... as part of something greater than us - greater than any alien force. And if you and I are powerless now, I want to believe that.. if we listen, to what's speaking.. it can give us the power to save ourselves.
Then we believe the same thing.
[Mulder embraces Scully]
...Maybe there's hope.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's The X-Files pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.