at a nearby fertility clinic. When Mulder is called away by Scully, an assassin, the Gray-Haired Man (Morris Panych) arrives and kills Crawford with a stiletto weapon, revealing him to be an alien-human hybrid. After meeting Penny's physician, Dr. Scanlon, Scully elects to begin chemotherapy. Mulder sneaks into the clinic and finds Crawford there, seemingly alive. Mulder and "Crawford" hack into the clinic's computer database and find information revealing Scully has a file there. Mulder sees Skinner and asks to deal with The Smoking Man to save Scully, but Skinner convinces him not to do so. Mulder recruits The Lone Gunmen to help him break into a high security research facility where he thinks he may be able to find more information on how to save Scully. Meanwhile, Skinner tries to deal directly with The Smoking Man for Scully's life, who tells him he will get back to him. Inside the facility, Mulder discovers that Dr. Scanlon works alongside several clones of Kurt Crawford. The clones show him Scully's harvested ova and tell him they are trying to save the abducted women's lives, since they acted as their birth mothers. They also hope to subvert the colonization project as an inside job. Mulder takes Scully's ova and leaves, being pursued by the Gray-Haired Man as he escapes. He returns to the hospital to see Scully, who tells him that Penny has died but that she intends to fight the disease. Afterward, Mulder phones Skinner to let him know that Scully is doing okay and may return to work soon, as well as thanking him for his advice about not negotiating with the Smoking Man. Skinner and the Smoking Man later come to terms on their deal in seclusion. Production The show's producers decided to give Gillian Anderson's character Dana Scully cancer early in the fourth season. Series creator Chris Carter initially discussed giving Scully's mother cancer but decided to have Scully suffer from it instead. Carter felt the move would give the show an interesting platform on which to discuss things such as faith, science, health care and a certain element of the paranormal. Some of the writing staff felt that the decision was a poor one to make, citing it as "a cheap TV thing". However, Frank Spotnitz felt that, given the appearances of cancer-stricken abductees in previous episodes, it was an "obligatory" move to have Scully follow suit.