Mulder followed the man who claimed to be his contact down the hallway to a set of doors on the opposite side of the corridor. Scully was hanging onto Mulder; he was tempted to throw her over his shoulder, but he was afraid that the force would aggravate her wound.

"Mr. Mulder, we need to be more quick-" Klonikin began to say.

"My partner is injured; she can't go any faster." Mulder said, irritated.

"Mulder- Mulder, you need to leave me. I'm slowing you down, you need to go," Scully panted.

Mulder ignored Scully's comment and half dragged her to where Klonikin was standing at the doors. He was trying to punch some code into the doors but the little light on the keyboard kept turning red.

"I thought you said you've been staying here for a few days," Mulder said.

"I have been. The code must have reconfigured itself when I cut the power. This is an old military base- the main power source controls the electricity, but for security reasons, doors and access points have a backup generator…they must have reset the original code when they temporarily shut down."

Mulder heard the men who were down the hallway approaching the area in which they were standing. Klonikin showed no emotion on his face as he continued punching random codes into the keyboard. Scully was breathing heavily and slumped on the floor, leaning against Mulder's leg as the voices got closer. When the men were about 20 feet away, Klonikin leaned in to Mulder.

"If you fire your gun, everyone will know where we are. There's a window on the third floor. We can go through it, but the jump is dangerous- you could break your leg or-"

"That's a risk we're going to have to take." Mulder said, as he hoisted Scully up. "I'm sorry, Scully, this is going to hurt."

Mulder threw Scully up over his shoulder and heard her grunt in pain. Mulder could feel warm blood on his shoulder, but he had no choice, they had to get out of there.

Klonikin raised a finger to his mouth to signal for Mulder to remain quiet. He lifted up what looked like a detonator and pressed a small black button in the middle.

Mulder reflexively ducked as he heard a loud explosion about 200 feet away. The men that had been strolling towards the trio started yelling in Russian, and headed towards the explosion.

"Why didn't you just blow the door if you had explosives?" Mulder asked.

"Mr. Mulder, I read in your file that you're an Oxford-educated, psychological profiling, trained federal agent. What you heard was used for the purpose of a diversion. Do you honestly think that would have been able to penetrate a six inch concrete vault door made out of top military materials? We need to go, follow me."

Mulder didn't fully trust Klonikin, but at the moment, he really didn't have a choice. He had turned off his flashlight in order to avoid attracting attention and followed his supposed contact up a dingy concrete staircase. Klonikin led them to a small bathroom that yielded a large dirty window. Mulder placed Scully against the wall, who was panting heavily and holding her side. He helped Klonikin tug at the window, until they heard a loud creaky rustling as they yanked the glass upwards.

Mulder took a look out the window and noticed they were about 60 feet from the ground. There were window ledges and juts in the structure of the building, but nothing that would securely guarantee that they wouldn't end up as human pancakes.

"Let's go." Klonikin said, hoisting his leg over the side of the window.

"There's got to be another way." Mulder said, shaking his head.

"There is no other way, Agent Mulder. Now come on, before they find us!"

""There's no way that she can get down to the ground from here!" Mulder yelled, pointing at Scully. Scully's chest slowly heaved up and down, her eyes remaining half open.

"That's not my problem, Agent Mulder, you wanted a way out, this is the way out. Leave her and let's go!" Klonikin said, pulling on Mulder's arm.

Mulder violently smacked Klonikin's arm off of him. "Listen you son of a bitch, you contacted me and told me to meet you here because you had evidence on the conspiracy that-"

"Yes, you, Mulder. YOU. I did not tell you to drag others into this, that's your fault. Your problem. Now if you want your evidence and you want to get out of here alive, leave the broad and-"

Mulder drew the gun out of his waistband and pointed it between Klonikin's eyes. Despite the threat, Klonikin continued to lack emotion.

"Mulder, go." Scully panted. "Go. Get Melissa's killer. Get the evidence. You need to go. I'll be okay. You need to go, now."

"What's it going to be, Agent Mulder?" Klonikin said, glancing at a heaving Scully.

Mulder lowered his weapon and placed it back in his waistband. He turned his back on Klonikin, and lowered down to Scully's level, once again, hoisting her over his shoulder. He left the bathroom and Klonikin behind, going out into the new corridor that lay before him. He walked down the hallway, slowly taking in what little he could of his surroundings, due to the lack of light. As he reached further down the hallway, he realized that there were abandoned offices with glass walls and doors. He swung the first door open that he came to and walked into a large room, completely surrounded by all glass. There were no windows big enough to climb through, but something else caught Mulder's eyes…curtains. He walked further into the large room and found a couch, which he placed Scully on. The moonlight coming through the window illuminated Scully's face, which was drained of color.

"Scully," Mulder said as he stroked her face.

Scully's eyes slightly lifted open and she continued to pant heavily. "You should have left me, Mulder. You should have gone. You should have gone."

"Shhh. How did this happen? How did they get you?" Mulder asked, checking her pulse. Her heartrate was through the roof and Mulder was seriously worried that she wouldn't make it if they didn't get out of there.

"I waited the ten minutes like you told me to, but there was no signal and I my phone couldn't dial out. I left the car, that's when I saw you- or I thought it was you- run from the side door across the lot. Someone came from behind and clubbed me in the head."

Mulder felt the back of Scully's head and felt and noticed that a lump of hair was matted against the base of her neck.

"Scully, you might have a concussion. Your other wound, does it feel deep?"

"No- I, I don't think so. I don't think it hit any vital organs. But, I don't know, it broke through the dermis, it's bleeding, stitches, maybe-" Scully said, as she started to fade out.

Mulder lightly tapped the side of her face with his hand. "Scully," he said, "Scully, I need you to stick with me. I'm going to put a makeshift bandage on your wound and we're going to get out of here, okay?"

Scully nodded her head as Mulder ripped the sleeve of his shirt off of his arm and tore it into two pieces, tied them together, and lifted his partner in a sitting position. He lifted her blouse slightly to expose the wound, which extended about four inches across her abdomen and was seeping fresh blood. Mulder wrapped the bandage around her and tied the linen tightly, causing Scully to squint in pain.

"I'm sorry, Scully, but we need to stop the bleeding." Mulder said, finally securing the bandage.

Mulder placed Scully back down on the couch, as he went over to the window. He grabbed the rod from the holder and started pulling the dusty, thick, crimson curtains towards him. They all fell in a giant heap on the floor. He pulled them over to where Scully was laying, and went to grab more. When he had collected all of the curtains, he went over to the desk to find something he could cut the fabric with. He was content when he found two sharp letter openers in the second left drawer.

Mulder started to rip the curtains into sections and tie them together to form a rope.

"You're doing it wrong." Mulder heard Scully said.

"Scully-"

"Mulder, those ties won't hold our weight. Give them to me." Scully demanded.

Mulder looked at Scully until she painfully sat up and grabbed the curtain strips from her partner. She knotted the sections in a complicated looking design, concentrating vigorously at the task in hand. Mulder sat on the floor, watching his partner at work.

"The overhand knot." Scully said. "This isn't perfect, but the fabric is thick enough and it should do the trick."

Mulder tilted his head to the left and smirked.

"My father was in the Navy, Mulder. This is what we did for fun on weekends."

Scully stood up and picked up a wad of the newly constructed rope. Mulder took the majority of it, heavy as it was, and followed Scully.

"Are you alright, Scully? Are you sure you can walk?"

Scully sighed and took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm alright."

Mulder and Scully walked back to the bathroom and dragged the curtain with them. They knew they didn't have much time and that CSM and his associates wouldn't be too far behind…especially if the lights came back on and Scully had left drops of blood like Mulder thought that she probably had.

Mulder looked out the window and pulled the beginning of the tie to the left leg of the first stall in the restroom. He began to tie the rope when Scully took this project over as well.

"It's better if we tie it on three different landing marks in case one of them fails, but two should work in this case- or we won't have enough rope."

Scully went to get up but doubled over in pain. Mulder rushed over to her side.

"I'm alright." Scully said. "Mulder, I don't think I can climb down. I feel so weak."

Mulder pulled another strip of the curtain out from the pile on the floor. "This probably isn't the safest idea…I'm going to tie you to my back; you'll have to hold on as I climb down."

"Mulder-"

"Scully, I'm not leaving you. We can do this."

Mulder heaved the curtain rope through the window and watched as it dangled towards the ground. It swayed slightly, and Mulder could tell from the way it dangled that it was about 10 feet too short.

He motioned for Scully to come over and placed her behind him. He threw the rope around her back and pulled the curtain strip tightly so that she was secured to his back. He attempted to tie the knot like she had, and secured it around them a second time as well.

"Mulder, this is a terrible idea."

"Scully, when have any of our on-a-whim ideas ever been good?" Mulder said, smirking. "I need you to hold on tight, Scully. I promise I'll make this as quick as possible."

Scully nodded as the two of them made it to the window and began their descent. Even though Scully was light, Mulder found the extra weight on his back extremely difficult to maneuver while trying to climb down the side of the building. He heard Scully panting, but was glad to hear that she was conscious and that they were almost to the bottom. When they had reached the bottom of the rope, there was about 12 feet of open space.

"Scully, I'm going to have to jump. I'm going to try and land on my hands; I need you to push forward with me so I don't get pulled back by you." Mulder said.

Scully grunted in agreement and Mulder jumped down, landed on his side with Scully attached. They both grunted out in pain, as Mulder quickly untied them to make sure his partner was okay.

"Are you alright?" Mulder asked.

"Yeah. Great job, landing, Mulder." Scully said sarcastically.

Mulder felt bad, but was glad to see that Scully was responding in a sarcastic manner because it meant that, for now at least, she was okay. He reached his hand out to help her up as he heard screaming and automatic gunfire coming towards them.

He grabbed Scully's hand and yanked her as they ran away from the bullets. Mulder found cover between two buildings, as Scully pulled away from him, keeling over and vomiting in the corner.

"Scully, we need to keep moving. Scully-"

"Oh my God." Scully said, staring at the corner.

"Scully?"

Mulder walked over to Scully, where she pointed to a dead body on the ground. It was Klonikin; he had been shot.

"He's been dead for at least 12 hours," Scully said.

"What?" Mulder asked.

"His body shows signs of decay that would suggest he's been dead between eight and 12 hours…Because the temperature is cool, the decay of the composition would be delayed…"

Just then, as they were viewing the body, two men ran up to the space where they were taking cover and started firing. Mulder grabbed Scully's hand and pulled her out of the alley-like space, when she doubled over and started shaking.

"Scully!" Mulder yelled, trying to get her to move.

As he tried to pull his partner, a black car moved up to where they were collapsed on the ground and swung the door open.

"Get in." Klonikin said.

Mulder now knew the man they were dealing with was not who he seemed, but he knew that they couldn't stay there, as he saw even more men coming at them with open fire.

Mulder hauled his partner up, shoved her in the backseat of the car, following behind her, and took off with the man who was claiming to be the dead man they had seen moments before.

TBC: Please review! It helps to let me know if I should continue with this story!