For only the second time, we see Scully realizing the opposite sex while Mulder is on vacation but it is a relationship with almost fatal consequences.

At the start we see a man named Ed Jerse in a bar apparently distraught about the terms of his divorce settlement. While drunk, Ed decides to go into a tattoo parlour and get his very own tattoo. He chooses the design of a woman with the words 'Never Again' written underneath it. The next day, Ed hears a woman's voice referring to him as a 'loser' while at work so he decides to pick a fight with an innocent woman suspecting her. He is sent home with the boss not understanding what exactly happened.

Meanwhile, Mulder tells Scully that he is taking a vacation and while he is gone she must investigate a case for him about a Russian in Philadelphia who Mulder believes has valuable info on UFO's. Scully is angered with Mulder telling him that she feels like she has lost touch with her own life.

Back at Ed's flat, we see him hearing the taunting voice again which is driving him mad. Mistakenly, he thinks it is his downstairs neighbour so he bursts in her room and attacks her. While she is unconscious, Ed stuffs her body inside an incinerator.

Scully, hesitatingly, decides to investigate the case Mulder set her but she soon finds out that the Russian is a fraud but she still follows him into a nearby tattoo parlour to observe what he is doing. Here she meets up with Ed who is trying to persuade the owner to have his tattoo removed. They start really hitting it off so Ed hands her his business card and invites her to dinner which Scully refuses but takes his card anyway. Later, Scully phones Mulder about the Russian but the atmosphere is tense which prompts Scully to set a date with Ed.

After a few drinks at a restaurant, Ed suggests that he and Scully go back to the tattoo parlour which they do and Scully gets the tattoo of a snake eating it's own tail on her back. They then return to Ed's apartment and he suggests that Scully spends the night. When Scully notices Ed's tattoo is bleeding she quickly rushes to help him and when they get close, Ed is prompted to kiss her but he hears the voice again this time saying "Kiss her and she's dead.".

Next morning, while Ed is away, detectives storm into his appartment waking up Scully informing her that the downstairs neighbour was reported missing and that a foreign blood type was in her room supposedly from Ed. They say that the blood has 'chemical abnormalities' and when Scully sees the chemical breakdown she concludes that the blood is made up of the strange ingredients used to make the ink in the tattoo parlour.

When Ed returns, Scully tells him about the detectives and about the blood which was found to contain chemicals that can cause dangerous hallucinations. Ed then reveals about his taunting tattoo to Scully but when he learns that Scully is an FBI agent, he attacks her knocking her unconscious. The tattoo urges him to put Scully's body in the incinerator so he drags her down there but just as he is about to murder her, Scully wakes up and convinces Ed that what he is doing is wrong. Ed, now in control of himself, shoves his tattooed arm inside the incinerator burning it off.

When Mulder returns from vacation, the atmosphere is still tense and Scully tells him that she does have her own life and not everything revolves around him.