Agt. Scully was awakened in her apartment before dawn by a phone call from Agt. Mulder. Agt. Mulder was phoning from Hansen’s Motel in Providence, Rhode Island. He had deduced his location from the name on his room key, but he had no idea how he had arrived there. He also informed Agt. Scully that although he was unhurt, he was bloodstained.

Agt. Scully hastened to the motel. There, she discovered Agt. Mulder in a state of shock, for which she treated him. Agt. Mulder described having awakened on the motel room floor with a severe headache. The last thing he remembered was a conversation with Agt. Scully that had taken place two days earlier. Agt. Scully examined Agt. Mulder’s weapon and discovered that two rounds had been fired. Agt. Mulder could not recall firing the weapon. Agt. Scully suggested that Agt. Mulder was suffering from a serious cerebral event, possibly viral or encephalitic. She urged him to seek medical assistance. Agt. Mulder then discovered car keys beside his wallet. The key ring read "Amy."

Agt. Scully interviewed the motel manager and learned that Agt. Mulder had checked in at about noon the day before, arriving by car. In the motel parking lot, the agents identified that car by its license number. They discovered blood on its steering wheel. The car was registered to a man identified as David Cassandra. Agt. Scully again urged Agt. Mulder to seek medical attention, but Agt. Mulder insisted on investigating the case immediately.

Agts. Mulder and Scully proceeded to the Cassandra home in Providence. Met at the front door by the housekeeper, they identified themselves as federal agents. Neither Amy nor David Cassandra was at home. Agt. Mulder observed a painting of a cottage on the wall of the house and learned from the housekeeper that Amy Cassandra had painted it. The housekeeper showed the agents a room in which Amy Cassandra kept her dozens of paintings of that same cottage, which Agt. Mulder stated that he believed he had visited. The housekeeper told the agents that the house was in Chepachet. Agt. Mulder noted that his family had vacationed near there when he was a child.

The agents proceeded to the cottage in Chepachet, which was abandoned and disheveled. Approaching the house, Agt. Mulder suddenly collapsed and fell to the ground, holding his head in pain. Agt. Scully found Agt. Mulder entirely non-responsive but could not determine whether he was conscious. Agt. Mulder later described experiencing, during the seizure, fragmented memories and visions centered on a dramatic evening of his childhood in his family’s vacation home in Quonochontaug, Rhode Island; he had also experienced such visions before awakening in the motel room. The visions included his father, Bill Mulder, closing a door against him; his mother, Mrs. Mulder, angry and upset; his sister Samantha Mulder expressing fear; a young Cigarette-Smoking Man arguing with Bill Mulder; the Cigarette-Smoking Man calling the young Agt. Mulder a spy.

When Agt. Mulder’s seizure subsided, Agt. Scully described the attack as an electrical storm in the brain. She again strongly urged him to see a specialist. Agt. Mulder rejected that plan and entered the house, followed by Agt. Scully. There they discovered Amy and David Cassandra shot dead.

Later, while police and detectives investigated the scene at the house, Detective Curtis interrogated Agt. Mulder. Agt. Mulder admitted to having a memory of the house but no memory of meeting the Cassandras. Det. Curtis pressured Agt. Mulder by reminding him that police would be running a check on fingerprints. Agt. Scully insisted that Agt. Mulder be taken to the hospital. Det. Curtis agreed but insisted that Agt. Mulder travel there in police custody. Agt. Scully advised Agt. Mulder to say no more to the police until she had examined the bodies and the forensics reports.

In an autopsy bay, while Agt. Scully and a medical examiner examined the body of Amy Cassandra, Agt. Scully removed from the body a scab located at the hairline. She insisted that the medical examiner perform a craniotomy and a histological examination on Amy Cassandra.

In the police interrogation room, Det. Curtis continued his interrogation of Agt. Mulder. Based on preliminary forensics analysis, Det. Curtis described Agt. Mulder’s gun as the probable murder weapon. He showed Agt. Mulder a bloodstained shirt. Agt. Mulder identified it as his. Det. Curtis informed Agt. Mulder that the blood of both Cassandras was on the shirt. Agt. Mulder admitted that he could not explain that fact. Agt. Mulder was then placed under arrest. In the police receiving room, Agt. Scully met Agt. Mulder and Det. Curtis. She explained to Det. Curtis that Amy Cassandra’s blood contained Ketamine, a veterinary anaesthetic that, when used recreationally, can cause hallucinations. The same drug had been found in Agt. Mulder’s blood test. Det. Curtis nevertheless insisted on detaining Agt. Mulder.

After Agt. Mulder had been taken from the receiving room, an officer identified as Fazekas shot and killed himself there, while holding a photograph of his family from which his own face had been cut away. Agt. Scully removed from Officer Fazekas’s body a scab similar to that found in the hairline of Amy Cassandra. She hastened to find Det. Curtis.

Agt. Scully and Det. Curtis proceeded to Officer Fazekas’s home. Det. Curtis described Officer Fazekas as having been removed from his beat assignment because of a tendency toward extreme irritability. Officer Fazekas had also evinced a belief in extraterrestrial life. Discovering a series of photographs from which Officer Fazekas had cut away his own face, Agt. Scully suggested that Officer Fazekas had been suffering from a pronounced mental illness. She then observed a copy of Abductee magazine on the coffee table. On the cover of the magazine was a picture of Amy Cassandra. Agt. Scully theorized that Officer Fazekas had known Amy Cassandra. She pointed out that both bodies had the same scab wounds. She insisted that Agt. Mulder was not a murderer and suggested that the deaths had been part of a suicide pact.

That night, in his cell, Agt. Mulder again experienced visions and memories from the evening in the vacation home in Quonochontaug. He awakened and called for the guard. The next morning, Agt. Scully met with Agt. Mulder in his prison cell. Agt. Mulder expressed his certainty that he had not killed the Cassandras. Agt. Scully informed Agt. Mulder that forensics evidence suggested a murder-suicide in the Cassandra case and that Agt. Mulder would be released. The agents agreed that Agt. Mulder had been at the scene; Agt. Mulder expressed continued inability to recall or explain his presence there. Agt. Scully suggested that Agt. Mulder had contacted Amy Cassandra, who according to Agt. Scully had been suffering from Waxman-Geschwind syndrome, in which trance-like states lead to vivid dreams about the past.

After Agt. Mulder’s release, the agents proceeded to Warwick, Rhode Island, to the office of psychologist Dr. Charles Goldstein, who had treated Amy Cassandra. Although Agt. Mulder did not remember ever having been there, in the parking lot the agents found Agt. Mulder’s car. Interviewed by the agents, Dr. Goldstein expressed sorrow at the death of Amy Cassandra and described having given her an aggressive treatment intended to allow access to buried memories. Agt. Scully informed Dr. Goldstein that another of his patients, Fazekas, had also committed suicide. Dr. Goldstein defended his treatment and expressed his opinion that Waxman-Geschwind syndrome is not necessarily a destructive condition but can spark creativity and happiness. Agt. Scully harshly criticized Dr. Goldstein’s practice.

Leaving Dr. Goldstein’s office, Agts. Mulder and Scully agreed that Dr. Goldstein had administered Ketamine to Amy Cassandra and to Agt. Mulder. Agt. Scully heatedly asked Agt. Mulder what would motivate him to do anything so dangerous and foolish. Agt. Mulder then had another seizure. During the seizure, he remembered his mother and the Cigarette-Smoking Man in a tense embrace in the Mulder home in Quonochontaug. When Agt. Mulder recovered, Agt. Scully insisted that he was a danger to himself and to her and must seek the care of a specialist. Agt. Mulder argued that he did not want to be cured and that his seizures were returning to him memories that would reveal the reasons for his sister Samantha Mulder’s abduction.

Agts. Mulder and Scully traveled to the home of Agt. Mulder’s mother in Greenwich, Connecticut. There Agt. Mulder confronted Mrs. Mulder while Agt. Scully waited in the hall. Agt. Mulder accused Mrs. Mulder of having lied to him when she had described having been forced to choose between him and Samantha. He also accused her of having had an affair with the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Mrs. Mulder expressed outrage at that accusation. Agt. Mulder asked Mrs. Mulder who his father was. Agt. Mulder then began to bleed from his scalp. Mrs. Mulder left the room, observed by Agt. Scully. Eluding Agt. Scully, Agt. Mulder drove away.

That night, Agt. Mulder approached Dr. Goldstein in the parking lot outside Dr. Goldstein’s office. He demanded that Dr. Goldstein continue treatment. In his office, Dr. Goldstein injected Agt. Mulder with a drug that appeared to relax Agt. Mulder. Dr. Goldstein then attached Agt. Mulder to a machine and applied wraparound glasses to Agt. Mulder’s eyes. Under the influence of the drug and the machine, Agt. Mulder again experienced fragmented memories from the house in Quonochontaug. He also experienced visions of the night his sister Samantha Mulder was abducted. As Dr. Goldstein lowered a high-speed drilling device toward Agt. Mulder’s scalp, Det. Curtis and other police arrived outside the office. They entered the office to find that Agt. Mulder had disappeared. Dr. Goldstein was arrested. Agt. Scully went to the police car in which Dr. Goldstein had been placed and angrily demanded to know where Agt. Mulder had gone. Dr. Goldstein revealed that Agt. Mulder had stated that he was going to exorcise his demons.

Agt. Scully traveled to the house at Quonochontaug. Local police, led by Officer Imhof, were waiting for her outside the house. Agt. Scully described Agt. Mulder as a federal officer in dire need of medical attention. She insisted that if Agt. Mulder fled the house, police were not to shoot. In the house, Agt. Scully witnessed Agt. Mulder undergoing long, intermittent periods of seizure. Agt. Scully attempted to approach Agt. Mulder. Agt. Mulder pointed his weapon at Agt. Scully and threatened to shoot her if she interfered with his efforts to remember. Agt. Scully insisted that Agt. Mulder was having hallucinations. Despite the weapon pointed at her, she refused to back down. Agt. Mulder fired in the opposite direction from Agt. Scully. The police rushed the house.

Agt. Mulder was cleared of all wrongdoing in the deaths of the Cassandras. Agt. Scully later described Agt. Mulder's condition in her field report.