“Audrey Pauley” is episode eleven of season nine of The X-Files.
Reyes is dropping Doggett at home after they had a drink after work. They talk about plans for the weekend and it looks like it’s getting close to a kiss, but Doggett leaves and tells Reyes he’ll see her on Monday. Reyes drives off and is t-boned at an intersection. She’s taken to hospital and comes around on a bed in an empty ward in an empty hospital with diminished colours. She opens the hospital doors to find it is floating in strange clouds.
Reyes wipes some blood from her face then someone behind her says ‘Hello.’ There’s a man there, who looks to be a patient; he says he was a little freaked out at first. His name is Stephen Murdoch, but he isn’t even sure that matters any more. Did she look outside? When Reyes assents, he tells her not to do that. Reyes asks where everyone went and Stephen thinks the question is where did they go. Was she in an accident? Reyes confirms she was. Stephen was admitted with chest pains. He calls for Mr Barreiro, saying there is someone new. Barreiro fell at a construction site where he used to work; the side of his head is shaved and stitched. Reyes doesn’t believe they’re dead. Barreiro asks if she’s ever been dead. So, how does she know she’s not.
Scully arrives at the hospital and finds Doggett. He’s feeling guilty and says Reyes had a beer. Scully tells him not to; the man who hit her had fifteen. In Reyes’ room, Scully reads her chart. She tells Doggett she’s gone. Doggett doesn’t accept that; her heart is beating and she’s breathing. Scully says there’s no electrical activity in her brain. Brain death is indeed death.
In the empty hospital, Reyes looks through some paperwork that’s gibberish. Stephen says it’s not that bad when you get used to it. Reyes asks him if he thinks heaven is a big Catholic hospital. Stephen didn’t say they were in heaven. It might be hell, or a waystation. Reyes wants to find a way out. She drops a coffee mug into the clouds outside. It disappears in a burst of something.
Dr Preijers comes to see Doggett. Reyes had a living will with an organ donor card. Doggett still doesn’t accept it bur Preijers says time is of the essence.
Reyes sees a figure that doesn’t respond to the names she knows. She chases after and sees a woman who runs into a dead end and vanishes. Stephen calls for her; Barreiro is being enveloped in electricity and is fading away. In the real world, his life support machines have been turned off. The woman Reyes saw is watching; she works at the hospital.
Doggett finds Scully looking at Reyes’ records; they’re going to divvy Reyes up tomorrow. Scully found minor swelling to the brain; she doesn’t know if it means anything. Doggett has found the chart monitoring brain activity. It just stops. He thinks if they can find out what happened they can reverse it.
Reyes tells Stephen about the woman she saw. And in her opinion, Barreiro died, and you can’t die if you’re already dead. Which backs up her belief they’re alive. But where are they?
Doggett finds Preijers, who gives him all the information on what the doctor and his team did. Doggett returns to Reyes’ room and sees the woman; she says she’s a patient aid. She delivers flowers mostly. She asks if Doggett is Reyes’ husband, and when he indicates not, she says he loves her anyway. And that she’s not gone. Not her soul. The woman heads into the hospital’s basement, where it seems she lives. In a room with a model of the hospital.
Reyes isn’t dead, but at some point she will be, unless she can find a way out. And it seems those who are winding up in the replica hospital are not ending up there through mischance.