DISCLAIMER: I don't own The X-Files, though it would be awesome if I did. :)

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story came to me last night, as I was watching "3" again. I wanted to explore some of the issues raised by that episode, and Mulder's feelings about both Scully and Kristen Kilar at the end of the episode. The show jumps directly from "3" to Scully's return in "One Breath," depriving all of us some fantastic opportunities for Mulder angst. This story is born of those considerations and my own curiosity about what Mulder did after the X-Files were reopened in Season 2. Some time must have passed between "3" and "One Breath," since Mrs. Scully is ready to declare her daughter dead, and that's not a decision someone makes rashly.

Please enjoy and any feedback is greatly appreciated. :D

CHAPTER ONE

Somehow, he managed to get on a plane in LA.

The day had passed in a fog and even now he couldn't remember much of what had happened after he had heard the blast that ended Kristen's life. One minute he was sitting on a pile of tinder – all that remained of the Malibu house – and the next in a cramped airplane seat jetting back to DC. He was overcome with twin senses of loss. The pain had become tactile and he felt as though he were carrying a bolder where his heart should be.

As the flight attendants began introducing the emergency and in-flight procedures, Mulder reached for Scully's crucifix, the one that he wore now as a reminder of her disappearance. And of his guilt. In his pocket he carried a sliver of wood from Kristen's house – another reminder. More guilt. Maybe he should start a charm bracelet or something, adding a trinket every time he and his "cause" claimed another victim.

He was like a one-man wrecking ball, destroying lives all around him. He had been willing to sacrifice himself, but he never considered that someone else – someone other than Fox Mulder – might be asked to make that ultimate sacrifice.

So yes, he was haunted by Scully, who hadn't necessarily believed in preternatural mysteries as fervently as he did, but fought by his side as valiantly as if she did. He had never quite realized what an asset she was to him until she vanished. He had taken her for granted. Indeed, he now realized that would have much preferred her to have stormed out on him, raging at his far too open mind, fed up with dealing with his convictions – with him – than to simply disappear, a victim Mulder believed, of the very things – or beings – that she herself had doubted.

But he was also haunted by Kristen Kilar, who – in the end – had died because she did believe. He wasn't even sure he believed as fervently as she did. He still doubted the Unholy Trinity were actually vampires. John was too flamboyant, too willing to accept the stereotype of what a vampire should be – skulking around in the dark, stealing sustenance from blood banks, cringing under fluorescent lights. Granted, Mulder had no explanation for the boiled, bubbling mess John had become that morning when exposed to true sunlight. Nor could he explain the man's apparent resurrection that night. All he knew was that Kristen believed and she was willing to save others – save Mulder – by destroying herself.

Had Scully also saved him?

What did he need salvation from?

Mulder was haunted by a third person – John. Not so much by his actions, though those were bizarre and even hideous. But because of what he had said.

What nobody realizes is that there is no afterlife.

Of course, in the interrogation, Mulder had taken this exclamation with a grain of salt, the demented ramblings of someone insane enough to believe he was a vampire. John also believed he was invisible in a mirror and Mulder had proven that claim false. Why should Mulder believe these claims, especially after everything he'd seen?

Yet, John's words continued to echo through his mind, weaving themselves with images of Scully and Kristen.

I know this because – when we prolong our lives by taking theirs, all I see is such horror in their eyes. And that's because at that moment, they're face-to-face with death. And then suddenly they realize there's nothing else. There's no heaven. There's no soul. It's just rot and it's just decay. And I will never, ever, ever have to face that.

Just in the last year, Mulder had gather enough circumstantial proof to contradict John's claim. Mulder wanted to trust in some human essence, something that distinguished the human intellect from the banal existence of every other living creature. How could anyone explain art and music and literature by dismissing the soul? What about humanity's aggressive expansion? How could beings create what humans create and still be – at their core – no different from a caterpillar or a cockroach?

What, then, was Luther Lee Boggs a conduit for when he spoke to Scully using her father's mannerisms and cadence?

Who had returned to Jack Willis' body after the man had been declared dead? Even Scully admitted that whoever was occupying that body was not her former lover, her former mentor. How could a bank robber enter the body of an FBI agent if there was no such thing as the soul to transmit feelings and experiences and personalities?

If Charlie Morris ceased to exist, was Michelle Bishop, the little girl who remembered his life and his vendettas, just severely mentally ill? How would the vampire John explain away the fact that she became just another normal, happy little girl when Charlie's killers were brought to justice?

He was wrong, Mulder told himself.

Dead wrong.

But still, still Mulder felt a niggling sense of despair. What if John, in all his insane ramblings, in his blood consumption, in his obsessive pursuit of Kristin, was right?

Mulder cared not for himself, or for his own soul – he still doubted the existence of a God, as such – but he fretted for Scully's sake. If Scully were dead, or dying on some cool, sterile operating table, what would happen too her? Had Mulder doomed her to rot and decay?

He had betrayed Scully, in allowing her to be abducted and in losing himself to Kristen. Scully was his everything. What had he done to her?

It was late, close to midnight, when his flight touched down at Dulles.

His clothes smelled of recycled air and cedar smoke; he had ashes in his hair and tasted it on his tongue. He was torn between returning to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, writing up his report and skulking around the basement office, and going home to get out of these clothes. He wanted to burn them, sink them in the Potomac, toss them away and never see them again. He wanted to wash LA off his body, to cleanse himself, but he also doubted that he had the right to be clean. He should keep these clothes as yet another token of his betrayal.

But vanity won out and after a shower and a change of clothes, he settled down on his couch to wait out the night. At first he sat in silence, watching the shadows that played on the wall whenever a car drove by. But in the quiet, his mind was able to wander and he heard their voices: John, Scully, Kristen. Even Deep Throat spoke to him. In the end, he had to turn on the TV, simply to drown out the voices. He must have fallen asleep, or dozed off, because suddenly a watery gray light was filtering through the binds and The Today Show was playing on the screen.

His eyes were sore and swollen, aching even. He wondered if he had been crying in his sleep.

A young agent – new to the Bureau or simply unnoticed until now? – found him in the hallway near the employee entrance. Her dress was a little outdated – shoulder pads and large lapels – and her clothing didn't fit quite right, a size or so too large. She had to address him twice before he even noticed her and as she spoke she sounded muffled and far away, as if she was standing on the other side of a crowded street, not an arm's length away.

"Agent Mulder?"

He turned to her and waited, saying nothing.

"Agent Mulder, Assistant Director Skinner has been looking for you. He sent me down to your office, but you weren't there yet."

"No, I'm here," he said.

She blinked at him and he wondered if he had said something wrong. Since Scully disappeared, he had trouble saying what he was thinking.

"Right," she replied slowly. "Anyway, he's waiting for you in his office."

He nodded and thanked her, turning in the direction of Skinner's office. He walked past it once, because he wasn't paying attention and when he finally arrived at his destination, Skinner's secretary shot him a dark look, an indication perhaps of the tongue lashing that was to come in a few moments.

The secretary nodded towards the inner office. "The Assistant Director is waiting for you," she snapped.

Skinner looked up from the file on his desk, when Mulder entered the office, his face in a rehearsed mask of irritation at his agent's tardy arrival. But the anger melted away when he actually laid eyes on Mulder. His brow folded into a furrow of concern. Mulder wondered what he looked like to Skinner. He had sat in the office before with more bruises, more broken bones, more bandages, but in Skinner seemed to find the bags underneath his eyes, their red rims and his haphazard shaving job more disconcerting. It was as if the man could read the events that transpired in LA on Mulder's face.

"How was LA?" Skinner asked, practically reading Mulder's mind. "See any movie stars?"

This kind of lame joking caught Mulder unawares. He wasn't used to the AD using humor and it unnerved him. Did he honestly look that bad?

He shrugged in answer. "It's another bad fire season."

"The LAPD was very complementary of you. They liked your work."

"You've been checking up on me." It was a statement, not a question and for a few awkward moments, it hung in the air – no one said anything.

Finally, Skinner sighed, leaning back in his chair. "They called this morning. They said you left abruptly."

"I was done. I'll fax them my report."

"Actually," Skinner said, "I'm glad you're back. We got a report this morning from the field office up in Boston. They asked that we send an expert and after looking at the initial report, I thought that it might fit your…special expertise."

Mulder ran a hand through his hair. "Boston."

"Yes. A body was found near the airport early this morning. A man, stabbed to death."

"But it's an X-File?"

"I'm not sure, but there's a couple details that suggested to me that you might be interested in this case."

"Oh?"

"His eyes were removed and the body was surrounded with a circle of salt and blood." Skinner held out a couple crime scene photos to Mulder.

Mulder stared at them for a few moments. "Ritual magic, maybe?"

"That's your area of expertise, not mine, Agent Mulder."

Mulder set the photos aside and rolled his neck. "I guess I'm going to Boston," he said, slightly resigned. Skinner handed him the case file and he stood to leave. In the doorway, he paused and glanced over his shoulder.

"I wonder," he began, "who would take this case if you hadn't reopened the X-Files."