3 Years Later

Mulder is living in a remote farmhouse, the house is dusty and cluttered, newspaper clippings are littered everywhere.

Mulder is staring at his computer on his desk searching kindergarten class photos, with the long beard he's grown it looks kind of pervy.

But he's just looking for his son. For James, and hopefully for his son's mother, his former partner Dana Scully.

Unfortunately he left James and Scully so soon after the birth he's not sure of any identifying features his son may have. Instead he searches any possible combination of his and Scully's features... blue eyes/brown eyes, red hair/brown hair, big nose/dainty nose, etc.

Everyday, every dead end, he swears he won't give up. He never stopped looking for his sister and he won't stop looking for his son and Scully either, he just hopes for better news then with Samantha when he finds them.

Still going so long without a glimpse of them, without one thread of lead to pull at has worn on him. The loneliness that surrounds him is palpable but he convinces himself it's his punishment for ever leaving them in the first place.

Occasionally the gunmen or Skinner will pay him a visit, but those have started to dwindle down this last year.

He has been living on his family's money, not that he has a lot of expenses. Lately though in the middle of the night he's even been so desperate as to call one of those hot lines... NO, not those kinds, the psychic ones. It's gotten to the point where he's spending more on those hourly calls then his mortgage but he's at a loss of where else to turn to.

A couple Sundays he even went to church, tried to pray for God's help in finding his family... so far no answer.

Scully had spent most of the past three years in hiding, off the grid, living with natives... surviving off the land.

It was hard but she told herself everyday it was for her son. Still the separation from Mulder was getting to her, this was the longest they had ever been apart and each day she woke up and he wasn't next to her broke her heart a little more.

She tried to rationalize that Mulder would want them safe more than anything but she didn't know how much longer she could keep surviving like this without it effecting James, children could pick up on so much, especially her little boy and she didn't want him to be raised with fear or sadness, with a longing that never went away.

So this year she made a decision to venture back out into the world, she was living under an assumed name and working in a different field but perhaps if it was meant to be- Mulder would find her and they could be a family again.

She thought it was clever to get a job at Oxford, the place Mulder had gotten his bachelors in Psychology and lead to him becoming the genius profiler he was.

She knew it was a long shot that Mulder would ever think to look for her there but she prayed, every day on her way home she stopped by the Cathedral and prayed he would find his way to her again.

Mulder POV:

*BRRRinggggg*BRRRingggg*BRRRingg-

"Hello, you've reached the FBI's least wanted," I quipped answering the phone.

"Really, that's how you answer your phone?" The voice on the other end chastised me.

"Doggett! How the hell are you? Hear you made your way out of the basement finally." I said making conversation.

"Yes, yes I did, look I had a visitor today... an Agent Drummy."

"Drummy? That's actually someone's name?" I asked.

"You really want to go down that road, Fox?" Doggett remarked.

"Touché."

"Look, he has an agent missing, and the case is... well unusual, he asked that I get in touch with you. The FBI wants your help on this Mulder." He tells me.

"And why isn't your help enough?" I ask.

Doggett and I were never bff's but he could manage his way around the unusual well enough, and despite personality clashes he was a stand up guy.

"As you pointed out Mulder, I made my way out of the basement."

"Yeah, well so have I," I told him getting annoyed.

"Not by much from what I hear." I looked around at the yellow number 2 pencils I had been playing with a second ago.

Alright, so he may have had a point but I wasn't about to let him know that.

"Look, my unabomber appearance aside, I'm not just out of the basement, I'm out of the whole damn FBI. Remember there was a tribunal that lead to a public humiliation about the government covering up for aliens, ring any bells?"

"I think their desperate Mulder, either way they said they are willing to forgive everything if you help locate this missing agent."

"How very magnanimous of them considering it was their bogus charges on me that kicked everything off in the first place, they should be asking my forgiveness."

"Fine. I'll tell them your answer." I was about to hang up when I looked around, around my empty house, with nothing to look forward to but more dead ends and late night phone calls with psychic posers.

"Wait, I'll go" I quickly tell him.

"You will?" He asked sounding almost surprised as I was agreeing to this.

"Yeah... under one condition."

A few days later Mulder was once again walking through the halls of the FBI. He was getting major deja vu but every time his looked to his side and Scully wasn't next to him the illusion vanished.

He reasoned that getting a solve under his belt would boost his spirits enough to reenergize his search for Scully and James.

The case was regarding a Monica Bannan, a special agent who had gone missing investigating the murder of a nun.

Mulder was confused as to the supposed spooky element to all of this but apparently there was also a psychic father Crissman involved.

A/N: I am changing the case in I Want To Believe, it has similarities but will go in very different directions...

*cough*cough* for instance across the pond *cough*cough*