TEASER

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
10:24 PM
Henry is sitting at a table playing poker with some mobsters. The one guy, Joe Cutrona, has four kings in his hand. Henry asks for three more cards. The man lays down his cards, thinking he beat Henry, but he has a straight flush.

Henry starts to pick the chips off of the table--over $100,000 worth. The man tells him that he has to give them a chance to win it back, but Henry says that he has all that he needs. It's obvious that they are going to do something to Henry.

Two of the men take Henry and drag him outside to the roof, his chips spilling on the floor. The men throw him over the roof. He falls, but when he hits, he gets up and walks away.

ACT ONE

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
9:17 AM
Scully gets out of a taxi and calls Mulder on her cell phone. Behind her a ?grate? opens and the platform inside starts to rise to reveal Mulder. She tells Mulder that she is where he asked her to be.

SCULLY: So where are you?
MULDER: Oh, around.
SCULLY: Yeah?
MULDER (off the phone): Hey, nice outfit!

Scully turns around to see Mulder.

He tells her about Joe Cutrona, whom she knows the bureau have been trying to build a case on, for organized crime: gambling, extortion, and murder.

Mulder tells her to look up, and she does. The camera pans up the tall building. Mulder tells her that Cutrona was being surveilled by some agents on the ground. Suddenly they saw a man falling from of the top - 30 floors - and fall into the shaft, (that Mulder came out of) because the doors happened to be open.

MULDER: They witnessed a man being thrown Cutrona's roof at 10:40 p.m. This man fell thirty floors, plus the distance down this shaft, because these doors just happened to be open--straight through, nothin' but net.
SCULLY: Ouch.
MULDER: I'm guessin' that's what he said--after he got up, climbed out of here, scampered off into the night.

Mulder gets Scully to go down the shaft (pun intended). She asks if he knows who the man is, but he has no idea. Mulder tells her that the basement hasn't been thoroughly searched, because it's not a crime to fall 300 feet and not die.

SCULLY: And your theory is…?
MULDER: What if this man had some kind of special capability? Some kinda genetic predisposition towards rapid healing or tissue regeneration?
SCULLY: So basically, what if we were looking for Wile E. Coyote?

Scully tells him that the wind could have been blowing a certain way, or he landed just the right way, and just was really lucky. Mulder tells her that thousands of variables would have convene exactly right to be involved in that.

Scully finds a linen cart that the wheels have been broken on. Scully theorizes that the cart could have been on the platform when he hit, and that would explain the condition of the wheels, and that the whole thing could have had just enough give to save his life.

Mulder tells her that they have to find him. He starts looking through one of the linen carts when a glass eyeball falls out.

MULDER: Looks like maybe we found part of him already.

MELROSE PARK, ILLINOIS
10:23 AM
Mulder and Scully are standing at the front of an apartment building when Mulder rings the buzzer for room 313. She tells him that there has to be at least 600 people in Chicago with prosthetic eyes. He tells her that only this man, Henry Weems, made an appointment to get a new one that morning.

After Mulder rings the buzzer again and Henry doesn't answer the door, Scully says:

SCULLY: Maybe he can't see his way to the door.

Mulder smiles at her joke.

An old woman comes out the front door, and Mulder grabs it before it closes.

MULDER: Come on, Scully, I'm feelin' lucky.

Walking down the hallway, they are stopped by a woman, Maggie Lupone, who asks them for their help, saying it's an emergency. Her pipe is leaking; water is everywhere. Scully tells her that they're not plumbers, and Mulder asks why Weems, the superintendent didn't fix it. She says that it would have taken forever for him to do it. She says that Mulder is stronger than she is and should be able to turn the water off.

Annoyed, Mulder goes under the sink and tries to shut the valve. Her son, Richie, comes out and tells Mulder that he's turning it the wrong way. His mother tells him to go out, but then tells Mulder that he is turning it the wrong way.

As Mulder tries to fix it, the pipe sprays water everywhere, soaking Mulder. Scully stands trying not to laugh, and not succeeding very well.

Suddenly, the wooden floor breaks, and Mulder falls through. Scully looks down at him.

SCULLY: You OK, Mulder?
MULDER: Yeah, it's all right, my ass broke the fall.

While down there, Mulder finds Henry. He has a patch over one eye.

Mulder gives Henry his eye back. Henry avoids questioning and refuses to testify against the gangsters. While there, they see this weird contraption, which with cause and effect, hangs a wooden person when Mulder presses a lever. All of this was built by Henry.

Once out in the hall, Scully makes a suggestion to Mulder.

SCULLY: So, here's the plan as I see it. We inform the Chicago field office about Weems, leaving it to them to secure his testimony. You change your clothes. We fly back to D.C. by sunset. And all is right with the world.
MULDER: Come on, Scully, you're gonna dump this case, just as it's getting interesting.
SCULLY: Interesting, Mulder, was when we were looking for Wile E. Coyote.

She tells him that Henry just got lucky.

MULDER: Maybe his luck is the X-File.

After Mulder and Scully walk out, the elevator opens, and one of the mobsters steps out.

Outside, Mulder tries to stop the door before it closes, but he is too late. He realizes that he must have lost his keys when he fell.

The mobster breaks into Henry's apartment to kill him, but he ends up dead because of a series of causes and effects.

Mulder and Scully run in to see what happened.

In Henry's apartment, they see the mobster, dead, hanging by his shoelace, which is attached to the ceiling fan.

ACT TWO

Now an official crime scene, a photographer takes pictures of the hanging body.

MULDER (to photographer): So, you get many of these?

Mulder tells Scully that it was not murder, but probably a heart attack, because of cause and effect - he tells her that the guy went to shoot the gun, but a noise startled him -- Mulder's buzz at the door. Missing, the bullet knocked over the lamp, which knocked over the ironing board. As the bullet ricocheted, Henry jumped over the couch. As the man went after Henry, he tripped over the ironing board, bounced off the chair, flipped end-over-end and his shoelace got caught on the ceiling fan.

Scully smiles at his theory and accepts it.

Suddenly, the man falls from the fan and lands on the floor.

Mulder theorizes that Henry all these causes and effects seem to happen in his favor. Scully says that he means Henry has "dumb luck."

The boy, Richie, walks into the room. Scully tells Mulder to wait a minute. She tells Richie that he shouldn't be out there, and she goes into his room with him to talk to him.

Scully tucks Richie in and talks to him awhile. He has sports stuff all over his room. She asks him what his favorite sport it, and he tells her it's baseball. Scully tells him that she likes baseball (I'm assuming this is a reference to "The Unnatural":). She sees a contraption kind of similar to what Henry had. When she makes it go, at the end it causes a little basketball do go in a hoop. Richie tells her that Henry made it for him when he was in the hospital. He tells her that Henry said he made it because:

RICHIE: He said it's 'cause, "Everything happens for a reason. Only just sometimes hard for us to see."

She asks him if he was in the hospital because of his liver. He tells her that it doesn't work very good. He asks if they are looking for Henry. Scully tells him that they are, but that they just want to talk to him. He says that he doesn't know where he's at.

Back in the hallway, Scully asks that if Henry's so lucky, why he works as a building superintendent, and why he doesn't just go out and buy a lottery ticket.

Henry is listening through a vent.

Henry is in Richie's room talking to him. He tells him that everything will be OK. When Richie asks where he is going, Henry tells him that there is something that he has to do that he's been putting off.

Scully is outside talking on her cell phone to someone, getting no answers. She ends the conversation and gets into the car with Mulder.

They discuss Henry. Scully tells Mulder that Henry has no criminal record, and he makes so little money that he doesn't file taxes, no savings or checking account, no insurance, or even have a library card for that matter. He doesn't have a driver's license either. She says that he's 'retired from the world.'

Mulder tells her that it was only since December of 1989. He shows her a newspaper of a plane crash. The only survivor was Henry, which is also how he lost his eye. He tells her that he had been bumped from three previous flights before they found him a seat on that fateful plane. He has Scully guess what seat number Henry was in--thirteen. He also says that is was flight seven. Mulder thinks that it's more good--or bad--luck, that somehow his fortunes had been irrevocably changed. Before 1989 he had held down a job until the accident when he just sort of disappeared from the face of the earth. Scully tells him that what she doesn't understand is why he would disappear just because he had good luck. Mulder wants to understand why he all of a sudden resurfaced and decided to use his luck.

Henry buys a lottery ticket to win $100,000. He starts to scratch it off when he hears on the news that the police are looking for him to question him. A man pulls him out of his reverie, telling him that the one 100 grand. Henry asks how he can cash it in, but when he finds out that he won't get the money soon enough, he throws it in the trash. The guy that was next to him picks it out, happy that he has $100,000. The store owner tells him that taking it out of the trash is stealing from the store. The guy just blows him off. Henry tells him not to take it, or something bad is going to happen. The man doesn't listen, and runs out of the store, only to be hit by a truck.

At the crime scene, the owner of the store tells Mulder and Scully that

Henry was the original winner, and that once he and Henry found out that the man was alive, Henry ran away. He also tells him that before the man died he told him that he wanted him to have the ticket. Yeah right.

Scully tells Mulder that for a fortunate man, a lot of unfortunate things keep seeming to happen around him. Mulder tells her that maybe that's part of the package--he can't have one without the other. Scully asks Mulder why Henry came to buy a lottery ticket. Mulder says that maybe it's what she had said earlier about the luckiest man in the world buying a lottery ticket. He realizes that that was exactly what she said about an hour ago before it happened, and figures out that Henry must have heard her.

At Henry's apartment, Mulder is looking into the grate on the wall that Henry was listening through earlier. Scully tells him that that must run all over the building, and that she will start with the roof, and he can start with the basement. Mulder follows her up the stairs anyway.

When Mulder shuts the door, one of the mobsters comes out. He opens his apartment door looking for him, but he isn't there. Then he sees the open grate that Mulder had been looking into.

Henry is carving something out of wood when he hears someone coming. He folds the knife up, and puts it in his pocket.

Mulder walks into the room, but Henry is gone. Mulder finds Henry behind the wall and pulls him out through the grate. He tells Weems to just sit there, and then he starts to call Scully on his cell phone. Suddenly, the mobster comes in trying to shoot Henry. The bullet ricochets off of Henry's chest, grazes Mulder's arm, and ricochets again off of the door knocker, and his the mobster in the chest, knocking him to the ground.

Scully walks in, wondering what happened. Henry takes the knife out of his pocket, which is what the bullet hit. Mulder looks at him in amazement.

ACT THREE

ST. PATRICIA'S HOSPITAL
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
At the hospital, the mobster is being wheeled around. He is alive.

Scully hands Mulder a deck of cards. He has Henry pull some cards after he has done so, and each time, Henry wins by only one card higher. Mulder says that Henry is incapable of losing. Mulder asks him what it's like to be the luckiest man in the universe, but he tells him that it's a nightmare, and he wouldn't understand. Mulder tells him that he's thinks he does. Every time Henry gets really lucky, that people around him suffer.

HENRY: I think it's a balance thing. Something good happens to me, and everybody else has to take it in the kiester (spelling?).

Mulder knows that Henry has kept a low profile, but wants to know why he came out and started using it. He tells him that the mobsters could stand the trimming. He asks then about the lottery, and Henry tells him that he knew he shouldn't have done it, but he needed the money. Scully figures out that he wanted the money to help Richie. He tells them that he wanted to send Richie to England where they could help him, Richie's hepatitis has caused complications, and he has a very rare blood type, B negative, and he is also CNV negative. No one is on the donor list with the same type would be found in time. Scully wants to put Henry into protective custody. Henry pulls another card from the deck. It's a king. He says that they need protection from him. Mulder lets him go, knowing he doesn't need protection.

Henry walks outside, and a mobster starts to follow him.

Scully tells Mulder that all luck eventually runs out. She pulls a card from the deck, an ace, which beats Henry's previous one. Mulder rushes out into the street yelling for Henry. Henry ends up on the road, and gets hit by a truck because he turned around when Mulder called. Mulder feels Henry's pulse.

Richie's mother is telling him that he should be resting. He turns to her. His skin has a yellowish tint, as does his eyes.

Back at the hospital, Henry is lying in bed. He is OK except for some bruises.

Scully tells Mulder not to tell her that it was just luck that Henry is all right. He tells her that he thinks it's far from it. He says that he agrees with her that there are lucky streaks, and that maybe his just need to run their course.

Scully tells him that Henry has agreed to testify against Cutrona.

Cutrona is talking to the man who was about to kill Henry before the bus hit him. He tells Cutrona that their guy in the justice department said that they were filing a warrant that afternoon. He tells him that Henry is alive, and that they can't get to him, because there are cops all over the hospital. Cutrona asks him who said that they have to get to him.

Richie is being wheeled out of the house so they can take him to the hospital. He asks his mother to get the toy Henry made for him. She tells him that she will, and that she will meet him there.

His mother is packing his things when the mobster comes into the room. The camera pans down to Richie's toy.

ACT FOUR

Richie lies sick in the hospital bed as Henry watches over him.

Mulder and Scully come into the room. They tell Henry that they didn't find her. He knows that Cutrona did it to stop him from testifying. They tell him that it makes it very hard for them to get a search warrant, because there was no sign of a kidnapping, or a ransom note. Scully tells him that they'll deal with Cutrona. He asks when. He goes to leave and asks that at least someone watch Richie. Mulder stops him. He asks Henry, that what if he said before wasn't true, that his luck hasn't changed, and that everything is happening for a reason. Mulder tells him that what looks like bad luck might not be. That they don't know what's going to happen in the end, and that they can't see the forest for the trees. Henry doesn't listen, and goes to leave. He rips his jacket trying to put it on.

The camera pans to show a sign through the window blinds that says, "R.I. Childes Pediatric Care."

Mulder asks Scully how Richie is doing, but she tells him that it's not good. They need to find a donor in the next couple of hours.

Mulder asks Scully what if everyone that becomes involved in Henry's life become an intrigle (spelling?) part of his luck, including the two of them. Scully tells him that he's acting as if they're all trapped in one of the contraptions that he builds. Mulder walks out, telling her that he's looking for Maggie Lupone.

Mulder finds a phone book. He walks back to Scully, telling her that luck is the over reaching force of the investigation. To decide where to go, Mulder opens the phone book and just flips through it to see what his finger lands on. He stops on an advertisement for the "Muhaymin Daycare service." He blows it off. Next he flips to "Grayson's Linen Service."

Henry comes to his apartment where is his met by Cutrona and the other mobster. He tells them that he wanted to tell them there is no hard feelings about what happened, and that he is not going to testify, he just wants them to let Maggie go. Of course they ignore him, and they take him to where Richie's mother is, and proceed to hang him from a hook that raises him. On the way in, however, Henry knocked an iron which was plugged in, into a bucket of water.

Maggie starts yelling for the men to leave Henry alone. Cutrona tells the other man to shut her up. The man goes over to the wire pen where she is and goes to open it. A wire is broken, and when he touches the wire, he gets electrocuted.

Henry swings over to the other side of the room, where the cord holding him breaks. He falls onto a board, which knocks a bucket into the air. It causes the hook to move in the other direction--straight into Cutrona's head.

In buildings in the city, the electricity flickers.

In the hospital, Scully turns to the window, and sees the "R.I. Childes Pediatric Care." Sign from before. Most of the lights on the sign go out, all except for a few letters with spell out "RICHIE." Scully gasps.

Henry helps Maggie out as Mulder and a cop come in to see what has happened. The camera pans down to Cutrona's body, and to his wrist. On it, is a donor bracelet, saying that he is of blood type B negative.

In the hospital, Richie looks a lot better. His skin color is normal again.

Outside Richie's room, Mulder asks Scully what the odds are that Cutrona would be a perfect match--maybe 1000 to 1 or 1,000,000 to 1. Scully says it could be higher. She smiles as does Henry.

SCULLY: Maybe everything does happen for a reason. Whether we see it, or not.
MULDER (to Henry): Maybe your luck is changing.
HENRY (smiling): Maybe.

Henry walks back into Richie's room and starts the toy he had made for Richie. Mulder and Scully watch from the window, smiling, as the tiny basketball goes into the hoop.

IMAGES FROM "THE GOLDBERG VARIATION"

Overall Rating : 9
*Shippy Rating: 7
*Based on the Redux II scale (1-10, as Redux II being a 10 [now with Triangle being an 11, and Millennium being a 12, above the scale])*


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