Plot summary
In Hollins, Virginia, Wayne Weinsider (Bruce Campbell) and his pregnant wife Laura (Lisa Jane Persky) learn via an ultrasound scan that their unborn child has bizarre physical abnormalities, such as horn-like protrusions. Wayne appears to be especially distraught after hearing the news. That night, Laura has a terrifying dream in which a demon -like figure snatches the baby from her womb. When she wakes up, the couple discover that Laura has seemingly miscarried.
Laura's brother, who is the local deputy sheriff Arky Stevens, reports her story to the X-Files section at the FBI. Agent Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) discards the report, but Mulder (David Duchovny) fishes it out of Spender's shredded paper trash can and then travels to Virginia. After Mulder interviews the Weinsiders, the police, who suspect an illegal abortion according to Scully (Gillian Anderson), search the property. Meanwhile, Wayne tells Laura that he destroyed all the evidence, claiming she aborted the child while in a trance-like state. He convinces Laura that his story is true, but then when the police find remains of the baby in the garden furnace, Laura turns herself in.
When Wayne visits Laura in jail, she becomes suspicious of him and is horrified to see a bite wound she delivered to the demon that attacked her on Wayne's neck. To evade detection, Wayne sucks out Laura's soul. An EMT is able to save her life, much to his surprise, although she is comatose.
Mulder discovers that Wayne has another wife, Betsy Monroe, who is also pregnant. A background check finds that Wayne is a Czech immigrant who originally went by the name of Ivan Veles and has been widowed several times. Mulder suspects that Wayne is a demon who is trying to have a normal baby and terminates pregnancies when the fetus exhibits demonic traits. After Betsy tells Wayne that her recent sonogram uncovers some irregularities in the baby's bone structure, Wayne proceeds with his abortion plan. Betsy then has a dream similar to Laura's but recognizes the dream-demon as her husband and confronts him.
As Mulder and Scully are driving to Betsy's home, they are met by a distraught and bloody Betsy driving Wayne's car, apparently having just lost her baby. The agents seek out Wayne and catch him digging in Betsy's backyard. Confronted, Wayne claims that he is digging up evidence before he is shot by Stevens. He is taken to the hospital and placed in a bed next to Laura. When Wayne sees her next to him, Wayne opens his mouth and returns her soul to her body, allowing her to recover as he dies.
Mulder and Scully discover the skeletal remains of several human babies in Betsy's yard, none with deformities, leading Mulder to deduce that Betsy is also a demon who is unable to have demonic offspring unless impregnated by another demon. Unlike Wayne, she has been terminating pregnancies that resulted in non-demonic babies – the very kind Wayne has been so desperate to have. As a demon, Betsy recognized Wayne as a male of her kind, which enabled her to stop him from extracting her baby and then frame him for the deaths of the buried babies in her yard. In the final scene, Betsy is seen driving away in Wayne's convertible with a car seat from which a baby's mottled, clawed hand protrudes. She smiles at her child, momentarily revealing her demonic eyes.
Credits
Adapted from Wikipedia contributors, Terms of Endearment (The X-Files). Paragraphs and formatting adjusted; illustrations, reference markers, block quotations and non-story material omitted.