Per Manum - Plot

Plot

Pregnant Kathy McCready is undergoing an emergency caesarian. As her husband prepares, the ward is locked down, and the child delivered is seen to be an alien.

FBI special agents John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) meet Duffy Haskell (Jay Acovone), who tells them about his wife—a multiple-abductee who he believes was killed by her doctors upon giving birth to an alien child. He also describes how his wife's cancer was both caused and cured by her abductors. Duffy refers the agents to Zeus Genetics, and shows them an ultrasound scan that seems to vindicate his story. As the agents leave, Doggett notes similarities between the case and Scully's history, although he does not yet know that Scully is pregnant. Scully investigates a Zeus Genetics clinic, overhearing a pregnant woman, Mary Hendershot (Saxon Trainor), telling her doctor that she does not want to be under his care any more. Scully hides in a storeroom, finding it full of preserved fetuses that resemble the alien child seen earlier.

In a flashback, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) tells Scully that her abduction (in the second season episodes "Ascension and "One Breath") has rendered her infertile, as her ova were harvested for genetic experiments. Mulder later found them in a secret facility (in fourth season's "Memento Mori"), but they were not viable. Scully seeks a second opinion from her doctor, Dr. Parenti, and is told that her ova might be viable with a sperm donor. Mulder volunteers for the role.

Back in the present, Scully phones Parenti, who is dissecting an alien fetus. She asks him to compare her ultrasound scan with the one given to her earlier. When she visits later, she is assured her scans are in order, but she sees Parenti speaking with Dr. Lev, the doctor she overheard at Zeus Genetics. Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) and Doggett confront Duffy about threatening letters he has been sending to both Mulder and Dr. Lev. However, when the agents leave, Duffy makes a phone call to Lev, warning him that they are being investigated.

Scully is warned by Hendershot, the woman from Zeus Genetics, that their unborn children are in danger. Scully meets Doggett and Skinner, having requested a leave of absence from the FBI. After Doggett leaves, Skinner tries to convince Scully to reveal her pregnancy to Doggett. Scully and Hendershot visit an army research hospital to have an ultrasound performed on Hendershot. The scan appears normal, but Scully realises the monitor they are watching is simply a video of another woman's scan.

Doggett has Duffy's fingerprints examined, and finds that they belong to a man who died thirty years previously. Doggett contacts an old military partner, Knowle Rohrer (Adam Baldwin) to find Duffy's real identity. Although Rohrer assures Doggett he will investigate, the agent is not convinced, believing that Duffy is a CIA agent. He confides this to Skinner, who tells him to aid Scully at the military hospital. As Scully and Hendershot sneak out of the building, they are found by Rohrer and several marines, claiming Doggett has sent them to rescue her. Scully and Hendershot are driven away, but Hendershot enters labour. The women are separated, and Scully is drugged. When she wakens, Doggett informs her that Hendershot's baby was delivered and is normal. However, Scully is convinced something is amiss, but nothing more can be done about it. In another flashback, Scully tells Mulder that her attempt at in vitro fertilization has failed, but he simply tells her to keep trying.