Revelations

Internal dating: A medical record thing gives the date November 28th 1995.

Scully examines the body, which she says was strangled. Mulder says the preacher was a stigmatic, bleeding with the wounds of Christ, but the blood tastes of sugar and issues from a bag strapped to the preacher's chest. "He was a fake, just like the others," he tells her, saying there have been eleven recent murders of fake stigmatics. Scully says that there are supposed to be twelve true stigmatics in the world at any one time - one for each of the apostles - but Mulder says the claim is wholly unsubstantiated. They deduce the killer is looking for victim number twelve.

A young boy, Kevin Kryder, is called up in front of the class to do a calculation on the board. As he picks up the chalk and starts to write, his hands starts to bleed.

Mulder and Scully have put out an alert so are called in straight away. The school counsellor says this has happened once before. It was assumed that the father was guilty, and he was institutionalised after a violent incident in which he waved a gun at the police, saying Kevin was chosen by God and he had to protect him. Kevin's mother rushes in, and Mulder warns her Kevin might be in danger for exhibiting wounds "that might be interpreted" as being of religious significance. The counsellor decides he should be taken into a shelter for his own safety, until they determine what is happening.

Mulder says they've done all they can and thinks the boy hurt his own hands out of guilt at getting his father taken away. Scully thinks they should talk to the father.

Mr Kryder says that Kevin has been in danger since the day he was born, watched constantly by the forces of darkness. The forces of darkness will come in the form of a respected man and aim to claim all souls, but God will choose someone to stop them. Scully listens intently, but Mulder is openly sceptical and turns to go. "You must come full circle to find the truth," Kryder tells Scully as they leave.

At the children's home, Kevin tells a ghost story to a rapt crowd of children. A strange looking man bursts in and the children scatter, apart from Kevin who looks at the man nervously. The man looks at Kevin's hands.

Mulder tries to get the children to put together a description of the man who took Kevin, but the result (an accurate picture) is so bizarre he thinks the whole thing was a waste of time. Scully thinks this man, whoever he is, isn't the killer, as none of the other victims were abducted. Mrs Kryder recognises the picture as one Owen Jarvis.

Owen tells Kevin he won't hurt him. "You're a very special boy," he says, but tells him he can't let him go home. "It's not safe," he says. He tells Kevin he will look after him. "Just think of me as your guardian angel," he says.

Mulder and Scully storm Owen's house, but find no sign of Kevin. Owen tells them he only wanted to protect Kevin from the one who wants to hurt him. "I was asked to protect him... by God," he says. Mulder is dismissive - "that's quite a long-distance call" - but Owen turns to Scully. "You believe me," he says, pointing to her cross. "You must wear that as a reminder." Scully says her religious convictions are not the issue, but Owen says they are. She has to believe, he says. "How can you help Kevin if you don't believe?" he asks her, saying that even the killer believes. He says she thinks she's a good Christian if she goes to mass at Christmas, but it is all meaningless if she doesn't understand the true meaning of the sacrifice. "Whatever he asks of me, I'll do," he says, as he leaps from the chair and jumps from the window. By the time Mulder gets down there he is gone.

Kevin returns home, having run away from Owen's house. As he walks round the house looking for his mother, the killer enters. Kevin hides but the killer finds him, just as Owen jumps out and fights with the killer. Owen gets strangled, but the fight gives Kevin time to run away, straight into the arms of Mulder and Scully. While Scully comforts Kevin, Mulder finds Owen's body but no sign of the killer.

"You're the one who was sent to protect me," Kevin says to an amazed Scully, as she strokes hi bleeding hands.

Scully performs an autopsy on Owen. Although it is fourteen hours since the death the body hasn't begun to decompose. "Any revelations?" Mulder asks, coming in. Scully asks him to smell the corpse, but Mulder can't smell anything. Scully, however, says she can smell flowers, and talks about the "incorruptibles" she learnt about in catechism, who don't decompose and whose body smell of flowers. "Are you serious?" Mulder laughs, saying stigmata and saints and the like are all made up. She says she believes "in the idea that God's hand can be witnessed. I believe he can create miracles, yes." "Even if science can't explain them?" Mulder asks, and she says that's what faith is. He cautions her not to let faith cloud her judgement, and believes the whole thing is fanatics using religion as a justification. "They give bona fide paranoiacs like myself a bad name," he says, and believes that once she finishes her autopsy she'll agree with him.

Scully found fingerprints burnt onto Owen's neck. Although they have no idea how they got burnt in, they do manage to identify them as belonging to a wealthy businessman called Simon Gates. He went to Jerusalem a few years back, and Mulder thinks he's suffering from "Jerusalem Syndrome," by which he's become convinced he's chosen by God.

Reports come in that Kevin was taken out by his social worker, but at the same time witnesses saw him with his mother. We then see Kevin and his mother, their car broken down in the middle of nowhere. The killer politely offers his help, but Kevin's mother doesn't trust him. "Kevin - run!" she shouts, as she's knocked to the floor. Suddenly there appear to be two Kevins - one of them running away, the others helping his mother to her feet. Dazedly, Kevin's mother gets in her car and drives at the killer, but crashes into a ditch.

Kevin blames himself for his mother's death. Scully reassures him, and promises to take care of him. She decides to keep him with her until Gates is apprehended. "I know about personally involved, and I'm not," she says, defensively. Gates watches all this from the undergrowth.

Scully runs Kevin a bath, gasping as she sees he also has a scar on his side matching the spear wound suffered by Christ. "You never draw my bath," Mulder says, with a puppy-dog look, but Scully doesn't seem to listen. She tells him about the wound, saying it wasn't there earlier when he was examined after the crash. When she says Kevin can be in two places at once, like St Ignatius in the Bible, Mulder laughs. "That's the Bible," he says. "That's a parable. That's a metaphor for the truth, not the truth itself." Scully asks him why he can "go out on a limb whenever you see a light in the sky, but you're unwilling to accept the possibility of a miracle, even when it's right in front of you." "I wait for a miracle every day," Mulder says, "but what I've seen here has only tested my patience, not my faith." "And what about what I've seen?" Scully asks, but is called away by noises in the bathroom. When they burst in they find the window bars have been forced apart and are red and glowing. Kevin had gone.

Scully wants to talk to Kevin's father, though Mulder says he's "a nutcase." Scully asks Kryder about Gates, but Kryder says he has no idea what Gates wants. They find out he's heavily drugged with an anti-psychotic and his dosage has just been increased. He can't remember anything.

Mulder gets a call that Gates has been sighted at the airport, but Scully sees a recycling sign (a circle of arrows) and thinks Gates has taken Kevin to his recycling firm. "Full circle to find the truth," she says, quoting Kryder. "You think t it's you," Mulder says, suddenly realising. "You think you're the one who's been chosen to protect Kevin." "I don't know," says Scully, going off alone to follow her hunch.

At the recycling plant, Gates tells Kevin that the end of the world will come when he's killed. "You have to die... for the new age to come," he says, as Kevin's hands start to bleed. Scully bursts in and they have a chase on a walk-way above the recycling plant shredders. Gates falls in, but Kevin clings on and Scully is able to pull him to safety. "I knew you'd come," he tells her, as she hugs him.

Kevin, his hands whole again, thanks Scully, saying she'll definitely see him again. She asks Mulder to handle the statement himself, as he has an errand she has to run.

Scully goes to confession, saying she's not been for six years and has drifted away from the church. She says she doesn't want to confess, but needs someone to talk to. "There's a man that I work with - a friend - and usually I'm able to discuss these things with him, but not this." She asks the priest if he believes in miracles - real miracles. She says she thought she saw them, but already is doubting whether she saw them at all, because her partner didn't see them. "Usually he believes without question," she says. "Maybe they weren't meant for him to see. Maybe they were only meant for you," the priest says. "Perhaps you saw these things because you needed to." "To find my way back?" Scully asks, and the priest says that sometimes we have to come full circle to find the truth. Scully says the whole thing makes her frightened - afraid that "God is speaking, but that no-one's listening."

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