A/N: Um... I'm not sure that everyone realizes that it's "poor Mulder" not "poor Scully"... The rest of the story was "poor Scully," I thought that I needed to beat Mulder up a bit! Hopefully this little chapter will clear that up!

Scully threw her body against the door. She could tell that something was blocking her way.

"Vance!" she yelled. "Let me out!"

She threw her body into the door again. Her shoulder was getting sore. Her throat hurt. She was feeling very dizzy.

"Let me out! Please!"

She could hear the scooting of the kitchen table. Suddenly, light filled the little pantry.

"Scully?!" Mulder's shocked voice spoke to her. "Are you okay?!"

Scully grabbed his jacket lapels and pulled him into the pantry with her.

"I'm okay. Malloy is here somewhere. He wants to kill you, not me!"

Mulder looked a bit taken aback at the new information.

"Why me?"

Before she could answer, a rope was wrapped tightly around Mulder's neck. Malloy pulled Mulder into the kitchen by the rope around his neck. Scully followed as well as she could, leaning against the wall for support.

"You think you're so smart?!" Malloy spat at him.

"No! Please! Stop!" Scully begged, trying to pry the rope away from Mulder's neck.

"Why should I stop?"

"You know why."

"I want to hear it from your lips."

"Because I love him! I will do anything to save his life! Anything!"

Vance keep his tight hold on the rope around Mulder's neck.

"Anything," Scully repeated. "Just, please, don't hurt him."

"Ah, Dana, you don't understand that what I want is his lifeless body at my feet!"

"If you kill him, I will never love you!" she told him honestly (not that she would ever love him anyway). She was trying to use the only thing that she could use to get Malloy to stop. His imagination of the possibility that she could love him. "You would have a better chance if you let him go," she added the lie.

"You could learn to love me," he commented.

"I think that's something Chevigny told Leonie. I'm not Leonie! My name is Dana."

Mulder's lips were turning blue. Scully had to think fast. She quickly stepped forward, grabbing a large knife out of the knife rack. She backed up against the wall again. She put all of her weight into it, fighting to stay conscious.

"You don't want me dead, right? You would have to wait another hundred years for us to be together again..."

Malloy nodded.

"You just want us to be together? You have some sort of drive for that? To make things right?"

Malloy nodded again.

Scully turned the knife and pressed the sharp point into her own stomach. A sudden morbid thought crossed her mind. She was relieved that she went to medical school just for the fact that if she had to kill herself she would do so successfully. She knew how to pierce her lungs and heart so that she wouldn't live through the wound.

"Let him go," she ordered, "or you will have to wait another hundred years."

Both men looked absolutely horrified at her new choice of action.

"If you kill him, I'll kill myself, and where would that leave us? To do this all over again in a hundred years?"

Scully could tell that Malloy had loosened up a bit on the choke-hold he had Mulder in. The color was returning to his lips.

"Okay," Malloy reluctantly agreed, letting go of the rope. "What do you want to do?"

Scully assessed the situation. Mulder had been brought to his knees. Malloy stood behind him.

"Let him go, and I'll go with you. You can take me anywhere you want."

"Scully..." Mulder tried to speak up, but it came out as a gasp.

"Hush, Mulder!"

Malloy kicked Mulder in the stomach to shut him up. Mulder slumped over, putting his forehead to the cool kitchen floor. He was just trying to breathe for the moment.

"What do you say, Vance? He's obviously not strong enough to follow us or call for help. Just take me wherever you want to go."

Malloy's gaze went from Scully to Mulder and back again.

"Ya know, I'm not sure about that. If we're going anywhere, we're taking him with us. I need insurance. To make sure that you behave yourself!"

"You don't need him! I'll be unconscious soon. You made sure of that. Just take me."

Scully glanced down at Mulder. He looked back up at her pitifully. She could see in his eyes that he hated that she was negotiating with this madman. She tried to let him know that she would do anything to save his life. She would negotiate with anyone- even the devil- to get her way at the moment.

Malloy was taking a longer time than Scully had expected to make up his mind. As each second went by it was getting harder and harder to remain conscious, much less lucid and able to speak properly. She slid down the wall to take a seat on the floor, still holding the knife in her hand. Sitting wasn't as tiring as standing. Standing was becoming almost impossible anyway.

Scully wondered if Malloy was just waiting for her to pass out so he could kill Mulder without her trying to kill herself. Though, she knew that he wanted her to watch him kill Mulder. He wouldn't do it if she was unconscious. That thought comforted her a bit. However, she was worried that the darkness would take over before Mulder could regain his strength. In that case, she was sure that Malloy would take the both of them out in the middle of nowhere, and, most likely, he would kill Mulder as soon as she regained consciousness. For that, she wished that consciousness would never come.

"Scully..." Mulder whispered. "Don't do this."

"I don't have a choice," she whispered back.

"Shut up!" Malloy said, frustrated, as he kicked Mulder again. "I'm sorry, Dana, but I have to take both of you. I can't just let him come after us for the rest of our lives."

"Va-Vance. You don't... need him. He can go away," Scully said, trying to make short sentences. She had no real argument left in her. She wasn't really sure if she made any sense. "We can go away. He won't come. Right, Fox?"

Mulder gave her an odd look at the fact that now was when she used his first name. However, Scully only used 'Fox' because it was easier to say. One syllable. That was about all she could manage at the moment.

Malloy chuckled. "I'm going to go ahead and put him in the truck. I think that you'll be fine right where you are!"

Malloy struck Mulder in the head with something that looked like a bat, but Scully couldn't be sure. The sickening thud it made against his skull made her want to vomit. She was grateful that her vision was fuzzy. She knew that she wouldn't have handled the sight of Mulder being knocked-out well. She was pretty sure that, if she had the strength, she would have tried her best to stab Malloy in the throat with the knife that she still had firmly grasped in her hand.

Scully was left alone in the kitchen after Malloy carried a motionless Mulder through the back door. She could feel herself slipping. She fought to stand up. She waited patiently for Malloy to return. She gripped the knife as tightly as she could. She had decided to try her idea after all. She had only one chance. If she missed, it could mean the end of Mulder's life. And hers.