Busy working on the rope as he was it took a moment before the hoof beats registered, one, no two horses, though the second sounded odd, and they were getting closer. For a moment he thought it might be the unsub, except he wasn't an unsub anymore, not really accurate to keep thinking of him as that, he'd seen the guys face just before he'd left and confirmed it was their suspect, Todd Jenkins. But he'd left in a truck so why would he come back with horses? What the hell Rawson decided, he was dead any way, even if it was Todd coming back on horseback somehow, making a noise might at least get the guy to finish him off quickly or rile him up enough to give Mick a chance to escape. If it wasn't him, then whoever it was might just get him out of here, so it was a no brainer really.

"Hey, hey, over here! HEY!"

Okay so the shouting didn't do the pounding in his head much good, but the hoof beats stopped.

"Hey in here" he called again. There was a pause and then hoof beats started again moving slowly towards him, again they stopped, but after a moment he could hear footsteps coming closer.

"Hello? Who's there?"

It was a woman voice, so not the subject, a relief and bloody hell, her accent actually sounded English, maybe he was more concussed than he thought, what the hell was an English woman doing out here in the backwoods of Montana?

"Hi, I'm kind of locked in here, my names Mick Rawson," he tried to keep his tone calm, he didn't want to scare her off "I'm an FBI agent and I need your help" yeah so it hurt to say those four words but it was true.

"Is this some kind of joke? Todd is that you?" her steps came closer as she spoke, until she was the other side of the locked door.

Mick rolled away from the door, so that she could see him through the bars, "no joke ma'am"

She glanced at him and then gasped as she saw the deputy in the straw, there was a rattling sound and then the door slid across. Now he could get a good look at her, the first thing he noticed was the Winchester she carried in her hand, it was pointed at Mick, her finger on the trigger as she stared at the dead man. She wore cowboy boots, dark blue jeans and a padded purple jacket, the brown suede English style riding hat looked rather out of place against the local outfit.

"Carter" she whispered, her attention on the dead man "Jesus" she shook her head.

"You know him?" Mick hoped the question would snap her out of it, he didn't want to scare her, especially not with that rifle pointed at him, but there wasn't much time.

"He, he went to school with my husband, he used to come over for poker nights when John was on leave."

So English, married and possibly to a military man, she handled the gun fairly familiarly too, looked like she knew how to sue it. Mick stored that knowledge away automatically, profiling was a habit and you never knew when a little knowledge, even of your rescuer, might just come in handy.

"I don't know you though, you don't come across many Welsh men in these parts?"

So she'd picked up on his accent too. She looked suspicious, well he could hardly blame her, it wasn't every day you came across a corpse and an injured man tied up, claiming to be an FBI agent, the non-American accent probably made it even more confusing.

"I could say the same for you love, I didn't expect to find a fellow Brit all the way out here either." He hoped the familiarity would help her identify with him and less likely to shoot him!

"My badge is in my pocket" he twisted his hip towards her, showing which side it was on.

She moved forwards cautiously, keeping the gun trained on him. Pulling the wallet from his pocket she scanned the I.D. quickly and then her gaze sharpened on him.

"Ok, so looks like you are who you say you are, Agent Rawson, so what the hell happened here?" as she spoke she pulled out a multi tool and flicked open a substantial looking knife. Mick fought against the urge to flinch away from her as she came at him with it, but all she did was cut the ropes on his wrists, and as Mick massaged some life back into his hands, she cut the bonds from his ankles.

"That looks bad" she indicate the bloodied jeans leg.

"I've had worse" he replied off handedly

She rolled her eyes, "yeah I bet you have, it's just a scratch right?" before he could protest she'd used the knife to cut the fabric up to his knee and scrutinised the wounds. "We need to get that bleeding stopped."

Well at least she isn't squeamish thought Mick "look, there's no time okay, we need to get out of here before he comes back."

"Before Todd comes back?"

"Yeah" he nodded, she offered her arm as Mick struggled to his feet, draping his arm over her shoulders she propped him up, helping him out of the stall and along the hallway to outside.

"You've heard about the people going missing?" he asked.

"Why do you think I'm carrying this?" she lifted the rifle. "The ranch hands made me promise not to ride out alone without it." She frowned, "so you thought Todd had something to do with it?"

"It was just a routine call, he was on a list of suspects, a pretty big list really, hence it just being the two of us out here. But it narrowed down pretty quickly when he shot your friend in there, without even having the courtesy to allow us to introduce ourselves" his tone was bitter, not having been able to prevent the deputies death hung heavy on the agent. "I guess the patrol car and uniform must have spooked him, he was probably expecting some kind of authority to show up eventually."

"We always thought something was odd about him, his father kept him on a pretty tight leash, but I never thought him capable of something like that, I suppose you never think it's someone you know." They'd reached outside now and Mick could see two horses, hence the hoof beats, there were also three dogs, sitting and laying near the horses, two Labradors and an Alsatian, the latter growled at the sight of him, rising to its feet.

"Easy Soldier, sit."

The dog sat back down again.

"You have a dog called Soldier?" Mick scoffed.

She shrugged. "He was a rescue case, came with the name."

"And the other two?"

"Apollo and Boomer." Mick raised an eyebrow and she sighed. "my husband was a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica, the original series, he picked out the names."

That was the second time she'd used past tense, so widowed or divorced? She spoke with affection, so amicable or more probably widowed, especially if he'd been in the service.

"Have you got a cell phone?" Mick asked, after a quick one handed exploration of his pockets had shown his own was missing, probably taken by his captor.

She shook her head "there's no cell service out here and the phone in the house is dead, that's why I rode over."

"There's a radio in the patrol car, we can call it in, get people looking for him and drive out of here, you can drive can't you?"

She pulled a face that made him laugh, he realised how much he was enjoying winding her up, maybe it was the concussion or just the fact he'd found a fellow Brit out here and so it wasn't particularly professional, but it did seem to be helping to keep them both relaxed. He knew he'd be in trouble if she froze up or panicked on him. Hard as it was to admit, on his own with no team and a bum leg, he needed her, civilian or not and she did seem pretty capable.

She helped him towards the empty patrol car, but they saw instantly it was no good, the tyres had been slashed, looking inside Todd had been at work in there too, the radio was useless.

Without saying a word, she turned him towards the horses "you can ride can't you?"

It was his turn to laugh as she turned the sarcasm on him "Yeah, I can ride a horse"

He didn't mention that it had been a long time since he'd done so and without being injured at the time, but you picked up a lot of random skills in the army, and one of the nicer foster families had had horses so he knew the basics.

They'd reached the horses which were standing patiently tied to a railing, one was saddled, the other wearing a rug against the cold, Mick shivered a little realising how chilled he was now they were out of the shelter of the barn, his own thin windbreaker wasn't very effective. The animals looked round in interest as they approached, one made a soft whinnying sound in greeting. Propping Mick against the railing, his rescuer reached for the back of the saddle, undoing a few straps she lifted down a roll of heavy fabric, flicked it flat and handed Mick a long raincoat. He realised she must have felt him shiver.

"Thanks!" he said putting the coat on and feeling the instant difference it made blocking out the chill wind.

"Good job you're kind of skinny or it wouldn't have fitted" Whilst she'd been speaking she'd undone one of the packs tied to the saddle, pulling out what looked like a first aid kit.

"I'm all muscle babe!" he protested, before getting serious "Look we really do need to get out of here" he tried again to stress the urgency to her, but she just shook her head and handed him the rifle, he recognised it as a Winchester 63, semi-automatic, an antique really, they hadn't made them in a while, but he knew they were a damn fine weapon for their type and this one looked well cared for.

She noticed him looking at it "it was a present from my husband, so look after it. We get you patched up first and then we head out, I'm not having you fall out of the saddle from blood loss."

Mick had to admit she had a point, but he was itching to get out of there, one gun and a civilian against who knows what arms this Todd had when he came back, but she was surprisingly efficient and moments later his leg was padded up with gauze and bandaged…

"Pink?!" He exclaimed in disgust