Gabriella's hand was clasped in Troy's as both of their eyes were drooping shut. The past day coming down on them as they had gone through a whole days worth of notes, Gabriella went home and went through more notes, and then Troy came knocking on her door as they went to Chris's, the agency, and then they were attacked by Jenson and Troy was still dying.

Gabriella blinked back tears as she didn't dare look down at Troy's pale body as she felt his hand shaking a bit. "Troy?" Gabriella's voice came out weak as she picked her head up and looked at Troy to see that he was struggling to keep his eyes open. Gabriella blinked her eyes open to make sure that she didn't fall asleep with the depressing thought of Troy dying as she knew she had to keep Troy awake or else that could be the last time she saw him alive.

"Hey…" Gabriella cooed quietly in a whisper as if it was some big secret and she had on her fake smile that was putting on a show of reassuring Troy that everything was going okay down in the lab, but they both knew it wasn't. "You have to stay awake." Gabriella reminded him softly as she brought her second hand up and clasped onto the same hand she was holding.

Troy swallowed a dry lump in his throat as he felt that his world was spinning. His eyes hurt just looking up at the lights as there was no way that he had enough energy to lift his hand up and shield the light away for the whole hour and ten minutes he was supposed to have left of his life.

It hurt even more thinking about it as he realized that this was it. Of course, it would hurt anyone if this was their life. He wasn't ready to die. He had so many things he had yet to accomplish and one of those things included trusting that certain brunette that put a smile on his lips every time he saw her, or made his heart rate speed up just stepping into the room.

"So…" Gabriella's eyes shimmered with hope as she her eye contact back to him and then it dropped once his faded voice continued, "You're probably gonna get a new partner after this."

Gabriella let out a deep breath she didn't know she had in her as her hands gripped tighter onto Troy's one hand as her weak brown eyes hardened at Troy's sight. Why the hell would he be telling this to her now? Didn't he think that he was gonna live? But then again, it wasn't like she was giving him any hope as all of a sudden her demeanor changed and she sat up straighter and her eyes lit up with false hope and this was one of Gabriella's talents: Conceal her emotions.

"Don't talk like that." Gabriella spoke perfectly clear in a calmness Troy hadn't heard yet since he was told he only had three hours to live. "You're not going to die."

Troy's smile was thin as he made a mental note in his head that he had to admire Gabriella for putting such a brace act on around him now. It meant a lot to him that she was actually staying with him in his dying hour instead of being down at the lab and tracking Jenson herself.

Troy shivered again as he felt the hot lights up above him shine even brighter down on him and he looked at Gabriella to see if she noticed the light change, or maybe it was just him as Gabriella continued to lightly stroke her thumb over his knuckles and stare down at him in a daze.

If he wasn't so weak he would've leaned up and kissed her in the moment, but he figured it wasn't a moment for that since they weren't a movie where the main character all of a sudden got an extra energy boost just because the directors wanted him to. He was just a regular guy that was trained to save people's lives even though he couldn't save his own.

He was going to die and he was slowly coming to terms with it, at least it wouldn't bet hat painful and all he had to do was drift off to sleep and that was it, but he wanted to make sure that Gabriella understood that he liked her. He felt like he owed her that with the first couple of days they knew each other, he owed her something.

"Brie…" Troy sighed and tried to speak in an even tone. "I want you to know…No, I need you to know that since day one I admired you."

Gabriella shut her eyes as her body became stiff and Troy could feel it with just touching her hands. She opened her eyes and the hope was still there, "Troy, do not do this. You're so much stronger than this, you can fight this."

Troy's lips curled as he noticed Gabriella didn't stop him from calling her by his nickname for her and that she called him by his first name instead of last.

Gabriella knew that she was lying to Troy as she knew that it was gonna get worst in a little while. When her mom was injected with this and she had only 45 minutes to live, she got so cold that her lips started turning blue, but she was burning up. Gabriella never fully understood that, but it got to the point where her mom's temperature got so bad that she was sweating even more and could hardly think straight and she could barely move her body as she had no energy left. Truth was, Gabriella didn't know if she could watch Troy go through that.

"I can't fight this. I…the doctors…and even you know that. But thanks for trying." Troy wanted to smile, he wanted to just hug Gabriella and tell her that everything would be okay, but he ended up doing the opposite as he didn't exactly know why he was putting a damper on Gabriella's optimism, but he just wanted to remind himself not to get false hope.

"No." Gabriella said shortly. "I promise you that we will get the antidote." Gabriella said it with such determination that she almost convinced herself that they would, and it seemed to work for a while, but in the back of her mind she knew that it was highly unlikely, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't try.

Troy nodded as best as he could to just calm Gabriella's nerves and let her think that he believed her. He didn't know what else would happen to him, but he was pretty sure that it had nothing to do with the antidote.

"I believe you." Troy said as his mouth was slightly ajar anticipating what was gonna happen as Gabriella was leaning closer and their eyes stayed on each other as if granting the other one permission to be in such close proximity.

Gabriella's hands were still gripping Troy's cold limp hand as his chest was directly below hers and her nose was slowly moving against his and their lips grazed each other.

It started off as a tentative kiss as neither one would admit that they knew exactly what they were doing. It was risky, they both knew that as if someone found out about them then the enemies could use it against them.

Gabriella's mouth stayed in rhythm with Troy's as he wanted that kiss, but his energy was barely keeping him going, but nothing was going to stop him now that it was happening. Their mouths opened as Gabriella's tongue slipped into Troy's mouth and explored the warm cracks and crevices.

They both knew that this was against the CIA's rules too, but then again that never stopped other agents from having an office relationship. And that sure as hell didn't stop Gabriella's parents as they ended up getting married and having a kid, she was living proof that this agency didn't have the time to check into everyone's personal lives by putting it's workers in front of the victims of the world.

Troy felt a cold tear drop down onto his cheek and Gabriella pulled away but kept her forehead resting on his. There were more tears as Gabriella sniffled and a tired faded blue met dark sad brown.

"Five days…" Gabriella said quietly as Troy's eyes bored into her.

He saw the bags underneath her eyes, her hair was in a messy bun so it wasn't getting in her way, and she had that bruise on her cheek, but yet…she still looked beautiful.

"Wh-what?" Troy asked confused laced into his voice.

"We've known each other for five days." Gabriella smiled as one of her hands reached up and ran through his matted down hair and made it stick up slightly as it continued to play with his darkened hair that usually was a light brown.

"Five long days." Troy added which made Gabriella let out a whisper of a laugh.

There was a silence as Gabriella's hand that was in his hair ran down the side of his face gently and held his cheek. "I've never felt this way before in this short amount of time." She admitted.

Troy was surprised that she was admitting these feelings, but of course when you were in a room with someone who had exactly an hour and a minute to live emotions were bound to run high. That was another reason why they didn't want you to have personal relationships with your partner, because you were too emotionally attached.

"Me too." Troy said quietly. He had had plenty of girlfriends throughout high school and college, but ever since he started his job he found that it was useless as he was busy all the time.

"I don't want to run anymore. Life is too short." Gabriella said as Troy lifted his chin and connected their lips to which Gabriella eagerly responded too. Troy's trembling hand reached up and rested on Gabriella's upper arm as Gabriella was about to slip her tongue into his mouth.

Gabriella was feeling all these emotions. She had only known him five days, and she knew it wasn't love because she believed that in order to love someone you had to trust them, and she had big trust issues even though some people would disagree with her. But she just didn't want to let go of Troy. She would do anything if that meant saving him.

Gabriella and Troy broke apart with Troy even more breathless than before as a loud high pitch alarm could be heard going off and the lights started flashing and flicking on and off in the halls as Gabriella and Troy both turned their heads to see Doctors and Nurses rushing past their door.

"What the"

"Hell?" Troy finished for Gabriella as they saw security guards rushing past the football size window.

The alarm kept going off as they saw a flashing red light go off out in the hallway to indicate something was wrong just incase you couldn't hear the alarm buzzing through the air.

"Has this ever happened before?" Gabriella asked with panic in her voice as even more security guards ran past their room shouting things into their walky-talkies.

"THE SYSTEM IS SHUTTING DOWN!"

"SOMETHING IS TRYING TO GET THROUGH! WE NEED BACK UP!"

"CODE 254! SYSTEMS FAILING!"

"What the hell does that mean?" Gabriella asked out loud as the hand that Troy had on her upper arm fell to connect with Gabriella's hand again.

"I don't--I don't remember what code that was." Troy said as Gabriella nodded.

"Okay…I'll be right back." Gabriella said as she was about to stand up everything went black and fell back to the floor with an 'oomph'.

The TV started to fizz as it cast a dim light on the faces of Gabriella and Troy.

"I don't like this." Gabriella said. There was something definitely off about it.

"This is really bad." Troy whispered in his raspy voice.

They were both staring at the TV as the screen became even clearer and tiny voices could be heard as the screen panned out to be in a dark room with what looked like to be a desk.

"Hello CIA Agents. I see you've been following me. If you just wanted to know where I was you could've just asked Ella and Bolton…that is if Bolton is still alive." The wicked deep voice spoke crystal clear as Gabriella narrowed her eyes and looked at the clock. Sure enough it was 7 o'clock and Jenson said that he would be getting into contact with her.

Jenson walked onto the screen and sat behind his desk, folding his hands professionally on top of the wooden desk.

"So now you have a choice Ella…" Jenson's voice was dark and menacing as the crooked smile was on his face and Gabriella just wanted to rip it off even though he couldn't see her or hear her.

"I will give you the girl in two hours and we can just forget about Bolton or I can give you the antidote in two hours at nine 'o clock." Jenson smirked.

"Those aren't choices, either way he has it planned so you die." Gabriella said with disbelief, but she knew somewhere along the line that Jenson wouldn't give her a fair choice.

"I'll be in touch, let's say around nine o'clock. And think hard Ella, because Molly says she misses her house." Jenson laughed as Troy's grip on her hand tightened. "But don't worry…we're taking good care of her. She has her own room, she gets three meals a day, snacks, and occasionally she gets to talk to people. I'll be in touch, and you do know where to reach me. Don't disappoint me Ella." Jenson said in his sick twisted way that made Gabriella want to puke.

The TV shut off as the lights turned back on making Troy and Gabriella blink to readjust their eyes to the blazing lights.

Gabriella turned to look at Troy and saw that he was sweating even more and his hand was beginning to get warm and his face looked hot and this was the start of the fever. Gabriella knew what she had to do, and if she wasn't going to succeed she was at least gonna die trying.

Gabriella stood up dropping Troy's hand as he looked at her confused. Gabriella bent over and put her hand to his forehead and gasped at how hot he actually was.

"Where are you--"

"Troy, you're burning up. Come on, we have to get you out from under the covers." Gabriella said as she started stripping the covers off of his body. "I think we should take your dress shirt off and I'll go find you some shorts or something, or at least send someone to do that." Gabriella said softly as she started to unbutton the buttons on his shirt to reveal a white undershirt.

"Where are you gonna be?" Troy asked groggily.

"Sh…" Gabriella hushed, "I'll be right back. I promise, just let me go get some help." Gabriella said as she sent him one last worried glance and walked out of the room to see people still frantically running around the offices and hallways.

Gabriella walked down the hallway and over to the elevators to see that they were out of order. She found this odd as she moved to the stairs and ran into a Doctor that she recognized.

"Oh wait Doctor." Gabriella put her hand on his arm and he turned to look at him as a look of nerves passed his face but was quickly replaced with a comforting smile. "Are you by any chance going to Troy Bolton's room?"

He nodded, "I was just heading there to see if anything had changed. Why, what can I do for you?"

"He's burning up and I think it's getting to the point where he'll need to have ice packs or something put on him, and he'll need probably different clothes."

"I understand, I'll take his temp because the last time I checked he was turning cold, but I'll see what I can do. I promise I'll help your boyfriend as much as I can." The Doctor reassure her as Gabriella nearly choked on air.

"Boy-boyfriend? Oh no, we're not together. We're just partners." Gabriella said.

The Doctor nodded. "I'm sorry Miss."

"That's okay." Gabriella said as she looked at the elevators. "Do you, um…actually know what is up with the elevators?" Gabriella asked.

"All the main power is out and the lights and medical equipment are running on backup generators. But there's stairs over there." The Doctor pointed to the stair case and Gabriella nodded again.

"Thank you sir."

"No problem miss, and you take care now." The Doctor swiftly walked off after that and Gabriella continued towards the stair cases. She had to get to the office to inform the secretaries that she was suiting up and heading out.

Gabriella jogged the flights of stairs and opened the doors to the office and saw almost everyone freaking out and shouting things to their partners checking if their computers, tracking devices, and other electronics were working.

Gabriella looked around and saw that Taylor and Chad were there again even though they were supposed to be busy with their assignment.

"Oh my God. Gabi!" Taylor called as she ran over to Gabriella and Gabriella looked at her confused.

"Aren't you supposed to be out on the streets?" Gabriella asked as Chad walked up looking worried.

"It was a dead end. We have to interrogate some more people. How's Troy?" Chad asked. "After seeing Jenson for the first time in semi-person, I can only guess why he's so focused on killing Troy. It's not like Troy was hunting him down or anything." Chad said with slight anger.

Gabriella really looked confused as more shouting could be heard and people in the background could be heard making rustling noises with papers and slamming of desk drawers.

"You saw the recording?" Gabriella asked surprised.

"Yeah, who didn't. It was on all the TV's here." Taylor said, "How are you holding up?"

Gabriella shrugged, "Fine, I guess. But uh…Troy doesn't have that much time left so…I'm going in." Gabriella said.

"What?" Chad and Taylor both asked at the same time making Gabriella wince in response.

"You guys haven't seen him, he's burning up and the doctor's are gonna put ice packs on him and…I can't stand to see him like that, so I'm going in. It's useless waiting here for the stupid antidote when Jenson has it all along." Gabriella tried to convince them.

"We'll come with." Chad said quickly with determination.

"No." Gabriella shook her head. She didn't want to drag them down with her if it didn't go as planned. "It's too risky."

"Compared to you going in by yourself." Taylor exclaimed. "There's no question, we're coming with."

Gabriella shook her head. She was really loving the two right now, but she wouldn't allow them to go with her fully. "How about if I'm not back by 8:30 then you two come." Gabriella saw the hesitancy in her friends faces. "Please guys, someone has to stay here with Troy and keep him awake." Gabriella said with urgency as there was even more noise in the background.

Taylor sighed. She knew Gabriella for quite a few years and she knew when her mind was made up, it was made up. "Fine. We'll stay with Troy."

Chad looked between the two girls and the disheveled office. "What the hell is happening?" Gabriella asked as she too looked around.

"Everyone lost everything in their files. Some people's things won't even start up. We're all having technical difficulties." Chad said lowly as the three of them all knew who was behind this. "Let's go." Chad said as the three started walking out of the office and towards Troy's room.

"I don't understand." Gabriella said from one side of Chad as they walked the flights of stairs. "How can one man get around all the CIA's defenses and into their computer systems to just shut everything down right under our noses?" Gabriella asked.

Chad shrugged, "I have no fucking idea, but right now Jenson seems to have all the playing cards in his hand." The three turned and walked down the hallway that led to Troy's room.

"Doesn't the CIA have backups?" Taylor asked.

"We should, but sadly…we have all been busy on these huge ass cases." Chad explained gruffly as Gabriella opened Troy's room and his head slowly turned to look at them.

He had a damp washcloth on his forehead with a water bowl on the side table, had had ice packs strapped to his arms to keep him cool in his white beater and black athletic shorts the Doctor must've brought him as the covers were off of Troy revealing his tan calve muscles.

He looked so pale and weak just laying there as his matted down hair was swiped off to the side from the last time Gabriella fussed over it.

"Hey." Gabriella said quickly as Chad and Taylor stood speechless in the doorway not expecting this as the last time they saw him was almost two hours ago and he looked a lot better then. "What was your temp?" Gabriella asked as she knelt down besides him as felt the damp washcloth and decided it wasn't cool enough so she dipped it into the water bowl and put it gently on his forehead again.

"104.3 degrees." Troy answered honestly in a course voice.

Gabriella nodded as she accepted this news. "Okay, well…Chad and Tay are gonna stay here for a while as I…um….well I'm suiting up and--"

"You're not." Troy's voice broke through her own. "No. You're not going against Jenson by yourself."

"Troy, you're in no position to tell me what I can and can't do." Gabriella said softly as she smiled reassuringly down at him. "And I might not even see him, I'll just sneak in and hopefully go without being seen."

There was a silence as the only noise that could be heard was Chad and Taylor walking slowly into the room even more.

"I'll be back before nine." Gabriella said. "And if I'm not then Tay and Chad are gonna head in after me. Don't worry."

"But…the Doctor said they might have the antidote." Troy protested.

"Might?" Gabriella asked eerily.

"They said it should be done in 15 minutes and they'll try it out." Troy said weakly.

"We don't have time to waste 15 minutes, I'm sorry Troy, but…we just don't and I think you know that too." Gabriella said. "I'll be back and Tay and Chad will be here with you."

Gabriella stood up as she found that she had the urge to kiss Troy goodbye since this might be the last time that she will have seen him, but Chad and Taylor were in the room so she held back her emotions.

Troy scowled as he didn't have the energy to fight with Gabriella so he did the next best thing and looked like he was pissed at her. How could she be so stupid to go into the lion's den without protection, but then again he didn't know that she was only doing this for him and she didn't have back up because they were all busy trying to work out the computer problems Jenson started.

Gabriella saw this look, "Hey please don't be mad at me." Gabriella pleaded as Troy refused to make eye contact with her and Gabriella sighed as she turned towards Chad and Taylor.

"Um…" She felt like she was giving them instructions on how to take care of a little kid. "Keep talking to him and make sure he does not fall asleep. Do whatever you have to do to keep him awake."

They both nodded, "Check in with us and we'll be there in a heart beat if anything goes wrong." Taylor said as Gabriella and her shared a hug and Chad and Gabriella smiled at each other as Chad nodded her way.

"Good luck Gabs." Chad said.

The moment Gabriella walked out of the room and the door clicked shut Troy turned his head and looked at Chad. His voiced was weaker than before now and he was dripping with sweat as his eyes lost all the color in them.

"Follow her."

It wasn't a question, a request, or favor to be asked.

It was a demand.