SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

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"Lauren..." Scully begins, and is interrupted: "I won't talk to you either." Mulder, taking another tack, tells her that she's free to go, then. Lauren looks slightly surprised, but heads for the door. Before she leaves, though, she stops, and says she can't go back to her house. "Why?" Mulder asks. "Because of Howard Graves?" Lauren says he's dead. "I know. He's watching over you, isn't he?" says Mulder. Scully looks a little flabbergasted but doesn't say anything. Lauren stares at Mulder like he's the only person in the world who ever believed her crazy story about her dead boss hanging around her house and killing people who tried to hurt her.

Cut to a tape recorder, now taking a willing Lauren's statement. She says that she found Howard crying in his office one night, scared because some Pentagon contracts had been cancelled and the company was going to go under. He was worn down by seeing his employees worry so much (see, he's the nice one, not like that ass Mr. Dorlund, who probably ate a baby in celebration when it became apparent that the employees were going to lose their jobs). Then one day Dorlund showed up with "that terrorist group," the Isfahan (see? Mr. Dorlund: sexual harasser, baby-eater, and terrorist), who would buy lots of parts at high prices. Howard was crying because he'd just found out that the Isfahan had claimed responsibility for killing some sailors in Florida. Well...yeah, that's pretty much a situation you don't want to find yourself in. Unless you're Mr. Dorlund, who probably dipped some babies in fondue when he found out about the murdered sailors, and then sat back in his armchair with his brandy and his cigar and tossed a couple of babies on the fire while he watched some porn starring Ann Coulter. "He was never the same," Lauren says, "and I thought that's why he killed himself...but he didn't." She says Howard showed her how Dorlund killed him in the bathtub, making it look like a suicide, so Howard wouldn't step on his sweet, sweet, money-making deal with the terrorists. (I hope it's become clear by now that, if Mulder and Scully don't solve this case, the terrorists win.)

"So now Howard is protecting you?" says Mulder, while Scully sits quietly and looks flabbergasted some more. Lauren admits that it sounds ridiculous, but affirms that she believes it: "He was closer to me than my father." She says she feels his presence and sometimes even smells his aftershave. See, you can't let your grooming go just because you're a ghost. I hope you slapped on some Degree while you were at it, Ghost of Howard Graves. You just KNOW that if Dorlund was a ghost he'd smell like the ghost men's room after a ghost frat party. Lauren is leaving, she says, in the hope that Ghost of Howard Graves can move on.

"That's not enough," Scully says. Oh great, she's going to get all practical now and wreck the awesome story about the ghost. Gillian's hair is curling up like crazy in this scene. She says that Lauren can show her love for Howard by helping her and Mulder finish Howard's unfinished business. Hmm. I guess. That seems a tad manipulative, but since it's all in the interests of catching some terrorists, I guess it's fine. Or seeing some sweet ghost action, if you're Mulder. Scully puts on the big convincing eyes and says Lauren will never be able to rest if Howard doesn't. Clearly she doesn't believe a word of any of this, but she's making it work. Mulder watches intently from where he's sitting at the table. Lauren says she'll do it. She leaves to wash up.

Mulder turns to Scully and asks her what she's doing: "You don't believe." Scully affirms that she doesn't believe in ghosts or psychowhatsihoosis, but Lauren does, and her priority is to get Lauren to help them. "Well, we may have just sacrificed our best opportunity to observe spectral phenomena," Mulder bitches. Oh, cram it, Mulder. See, I told you he didn't care about the terrorists. MULDER HATES AMERICA! Scully counters that she's giving them the chance to solve an ACTUAL case instead of The Case of the Blurry Witch Hat. Mulder is not trying to hear that.