TEASER
The episode starts at a bank robbery. The police are arriving. Skinner is there because he knows that Mulder and Scully are inside the bank. A woman, Pam, warns Skinner not to let the agents go into the building or everyone will die.
Inside, Mulder is shot. Scully leans over him and presses her hand to his wound - right over his heart.
The robber, Bernard, has a bomb strapped to his chest, so Scully can't shoot him. She is telling the robber that it doesn't have to end this way. As the agents are ready to come through the window, he tells her that it does.
The camera pans out as the building explodes.
ACT ONE
A newspaper is thrown onto Mulder's doorstep as he wakes up. He is lying in his waterbed when he notices something - he's wet. His bed has sprung a leak, in turn shorting out his alarm clock and cell phone. He's late for work.
Mulder trips as he answers his ringing telephone. Someone is telling him that the water is leaking through the ceiling to them. They tell him that he is not supposed to have a waterbed in the building. He will pay for the damages.
Mulder goes to the office; he is late for work. He is in the basement - the X-FILES office! Scully comes in, and Mulder tells her that he knows he missed the meeting. She tells him that he didn't miss it, but that he's extremely late.
MULDER: What are you doing down here?
SCULLY: We took a short break. What are you doing down here, Mulder?
MULDER: Having the best damn day of my life. Any moment I’m about to burst into song. Zippity-Do-Da. My ah, waterbed sprung a leak and shorted out my alarm clock, my cell phone got wet and crapped out on me, and the check I wrote my landlord to cover the, ah, damages is gonna bounce if I don’t deposit my pay. You ever have one of those days, Scully?
SCULLY: Since I’ve been working here? Yeah. When did you get a waterbed, Mulder?
MULDER (pausing, then choosing to ignore): Bank’s just down the street, I’ll, I’ll be back in ten. Cover for me, will you?
MULDER walks out.
SCULLY: When do I not?
Mulder goes over to the bank across the street. Pam watches him go in, repeating what people say, knowing what is going to happen.
Scully leaves the meeting to check on Mulder.
In the bank, everyone is on the floor. Bernard is taking the banker to get him more money. Mulder sees Scully coming in, and not wanting her in danger, tells the robber that he forgot to lock the door. Scully walks in before he gets a chance.
Mulder pulls his gun, and Bernard shoots him.
The building blows up once again, leaving the agents and everyone inside, dead.
ACT TWO
The same morning begins as before, with Mulder in his waterbed. Some things are slightly different, but relatively the same.
When Mulder talks to Scully in the office, he tells her about his bad day and his weird sense of deja vu, that everything seems the same.
MULDER: Scully, did you ever have one of those days you wish you could just rewind and start all over again from the beginning?
SCULLY: Yes. Frequently. But, I mean, who’s to say that if you did rewind it and start over again that it wouldn’t end up exactly the same way?
MULDER: So you think it’s all just fate; we have no free will?
SCULLY: No. I think that we’re free to be the people that we are. Good, bad, or indifferent. I think that it’s our character that determines our fate.
MULDER: All the rest is just preordained? I don’t buy that. There’s too many variables, too many forks in the road. I mean, I meant to be on time to work this morning, but my waterbed springs a leak, flooding my apartment and the apartment below me. I gotta write a check to cover the damages to my landlord, but as I’m walking to work, I realize that that’s gonna bounce unless I deposit my pay. So, now, I gotta go to the bank, which makes me even later.
SCULLY: Since when did you get a waterbed?
Mulder goes into this whole tangent of if he wouldn’t have had the water bed it wouldn’t have happened, and he follows it back to if Scully had become a doctor.
Scully tells him to be different, she will take his check to the bank.
In the bank, the same things are happening as before, but this time when Mulder goes to get Scully, someone else is shot. However, it doesn't matter. The police come and he blows up the building anyway.
The day keeps repeating over and over.
Pam warns Scully this time, and when Scully tells him she doesn't want him to go to the bank, he goes anyway, but says that he will use the ATM. At the bank, as promised, Mulder uses the ATM machine, but of course it is out of order. He sees Pam and recognizes her. She warns him as she always does. She tells him that Bernard is her boyfriend. She has tried stopping him everyone from going into the bank, but it doesn't make a difference. It has to be him. She tells him that things are a little different each time, but they always have the same ending.
Mulder goes inside anyway. He sees Bernard and recognizes him. He remembers he has a bomb. He calls Scully and tells her to get over to the bank right away.
Mulder gives Bernard his gun and tells him that it doesn't have to happen, that he can walk away and not die. He acts like he is relenting, when suddenly, he picks up the gun and points it around as before.
Scully comes in with Pam. They try to convince him. It doesn't work. He tells them that he is doing this for Pam. He goes to shoot Mulder, but Pam jumps in front and is shot. It seems she is the one who can fix everything.
Upset, Bernard lets Mulder handcuff him. It's over. Pam tells Mulder that this never happened before.
The next day, Mulder is awakened by the newspaper again, but it is Tuesday, and he is lying on his couch. Scully calls and tells him that Skinner wants to see them right away. It seems he is late again. She tells him that she also wants to know what happened.
SCULLY: You still won’t explain what happened yesterday. How you knew that Bernard Oats was strapped with explosives.
MULDER: Call it a feeling.
SCULLY: And it was also a feeling that he had an accomplice waiting in the car?
MULDER: I don’t think she was an accomplice. I think she was just trying to get away.
After they hang up, Mulder gets the newspaper, and the headline reads: "Woman Dies in Robbery Attempt," and has a picture of Pam.
The screen fades...
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