“all things” is episode seventeen of season seven of The X-Files.
Scully is getting ready, narrating about how moments define our path in life and we rarely stop the examine the path, whether it’s one of our own making or not. We drift with our eyes closed, never pausing or stopping to see the choices or choose another path. She leaves, and Mulder is lying in bed asleep as she goes.
63 hours earlier and Mulder is in his office listening to music and playing with a projector when Scully arrives and turns off the music. She’s rushed the results on the autopsy of Ms. Szczesny. She did, indeed, drown, but not on Mulder’s explanation of ectoplasm. It had more to do with the margarita mix she consumed as she and her friends re-enacted the Blair Witch Project.
Mulder shows what’s on the overhead projector. Computer-generated crop circles, a fractal predicted by the computer. The circles have been increasing in size and complexity since 1991. Mulder is going into details; Scully is clearly not paying attention. When dragged back to it, she asks the point. The point is that the computer program showed the crop circles are not random. The program also predicted another will be laid down in 48 hours. He has ticket to fly to England. Scully has to finish the autopsy and it’s a Saturday. Okay, Mulder will cancel her ticket.
Scully arrives at the hospital and asks for the post-mortem folder. She’s handed it, but there’s an X-ray inside for a D. Waterston. Scully returns to the desk and explains; it seems the contents got mixed up. Once handed the right envelope, Scully asks is ‘D. Waterston’ is Dr Daniel Waterston. It is. He was admitted yesterday and he’s in room 306.
Scully heads to the room and sees a doctor talking to a woman inside it. They leave as Scully avoids attention, then enters. She looks at the sleeping man in the bed as the doctor, Kopeikan, returns and asks if he can help. He’s Waterston’s cardiologist. He recognises Scully’s name; Waterston mentioned it. Scully was his student, right? Waterston’s condition is serious, but treatable. Kopeikan says Scully can wait for him to wake Waterston up if she wants.
Scully arrives home and the phone rings. The woman who was in Waterston’s room says she came to see him. The woman is Margaret – Maggie – Waterston’s daughter. Maggie tells Scully that her father wants to see Scully. She also doesn’t appear to like her.
Before Scully can leave, Mulder calls. There’s a group in DC that studies crop circles. He’d like a favour. They’re near the hospital and Mulder wants Scully to pick up some data because the person won’t fax it.
As Scully arrives at Waterston’s room, Maggie leaves. Scully talks to her former teacher and it’s clear that their relationship was not that appropriate. Likely why Maggie doesn’t like Scully.
Scully returns to her car and Mulder calls from the airport. He was going to leave the address as a message. Scully breaks for a woman – and misses being hit by a lorry as a result. The woman turns around and smiles.
Scully arrives at the address Mulder gave her and recognises the woman, Colleen Azar, who answers the door; she was at the hospital. Scully is a bit off and Colleen makes a few comments. Scully then gets called back to the hospital; Waterston wants a different treatment and wants Scully’s opinion on it too.
It’s clear that Scully and Waterston’s relationship caused more than a few problems. The entire experience of meeting him again, purely by accident, is what causes Scully to start thinking about how choices lead to different paths. And whether or not the meeting was by chance.