MELISSA: Well, just don't mistake the path for what is really important in life.
SCULLY: Which is what?
MELISSA: The people you're going to meet along the way. You don't know who you're going to meet when you join the FBI. You don't know how your life is going to change or how you're going to change the life of others.
Isabelle, you always ask the best questions! Thank you for reminding me about this passage, which I haven't thought about in a long time. For me -- and I think to John and Vince, who co-wrote the episode -- the lines were clearly meant to refer to Scully's relationship with Mulder, but there was a second meaning as well. In my mind, the dialogue was also about us -- about John, Vince and me, working together to write this episode, about working with Chris, David, Gillian and everyone else who was part of what we knew even then was a life-changing experience. For me it was an echo of the dialogue Scully says to Mulder in the Season 4 episode, "Max," about there being "no substitute for perseverance and hard work and teamwork because no one gets there alone." That line was not just about the Apollo space program and Mulder and Scully, but about us and how hard we were all trying to do our best. That's the part of the experience I am most proud of -- the people I worked with, and how dedicated we all remained to a series we loved.