By Jake
nejake@tds.net
 
 

Rating: NC-17 (Violence, Language, Graphic Sexual Content)
Classification: X; MSR; /O; post ep

Spoilers: "The Mastodon Diaries" takes place between "Folie A
Deux" and "The End." It contains spoilers from throughout the
series and is "canon compliant."

Summary: Mulder and Scully are thrown back in time...12,000
years.

"Although common sense may rule out the possibility of time
travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not. In case
you forgot, Scully, that's from your graduate thesis. You were
a lot more open-minded when you were a youngster." -- Mulder
in "Synchrony"

Disclaimer: Do these characters really belong to Chris Carter,
FOX and 1013 Productions? If so, no copyright infringement
intended. Fun, yes. Profit, no.

Authors Notes: I liked Jean M. Auel's "Clan of the Cave Bear"
novels when they first came out. Maybe it was the panoramic
scope of her prehistoric adventure stories that I found
interesting. Or maybe I liked them because I minored in
anthropology in college. Or maybe I just enjoyed the raw,
unbridled, primitive sex.

Whichever, Auel's stories got me thinkin' about sending our
heroes into the Pleistocene. Lots of fascinating possibilities
there.

To see the illustrated version of "The Mastodon Diaries," go
to http://cindyet.philedom2k.com/

The paleo-indian terms listed here and used throughout "The
Mastodon Diaries" are actually Navajo terms, as described in
the Navajo Code Talkers' Dictionary at
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-4.htm.
For the sake of this story, I followed the X-Files' plotline
that posits the Navajo language is similar to the language
originally spoken by the Anasazi, a group of Native people who
mysteriously vanished without a trace from the American
southwest more than 600 years ago. The character Albert
Hosteen, Native Navajo and a Code Talker during WWII, told
Mulder and Scully that "Anasazi" literally means "ancient
aliens." He believed the Anasazi tribe had been abducted "by
visitors who come here still." Hosteen later helped translate
the symbols discovered on several fragments of an alien
spacecraft. His ability to read the extraterrestrial symbols
implied a connection, or at least a similarity, between the
languages of Anasazi, Navajo and the alien visitors.
My profoundest apologies if I have inappropriately used any
Navajo terms in this fictional novel.

Definitions of the Navajo terms used in "The Mastodon Diaries"
can be found at
http://cindyet.philedom2k.com/TMDdictionary.html

Special thanks to mimic117, Dr. Guts, Jean Helms, jeri and
xdks for beta. These "MastoBetas" kept me from sounding like a
complete idiot. I can never thank them enough for their
generosity and expertise. MWAH, gals!
 

THE MASTODON DIARIES
By CindyET

"Survival is the ultimate ideology." -- WMM, Fight the Future
 

PROLOGUE

HILL AIR FORCE BASE
BOX ELDER COUNTY, UTAH
MAY 13, 1998
1:22 AM

Scully crouched on all fours, mimicking Mulder's low profile.
She whispered into the dark, "I shouldn't have to tell you
this, but we're breaking the law."

"Shhhhh." Mulder pointed a cautionary finger at her. His hand
glowed like a disembodied specter in the waning moonlight,
while the rest of him remained cloaked in shadows. He wore
black, as did she. Jeans, turtleneck, leather coat. Charcoal-
colored face paint camouflaged their cheeks. A faded Baltimore
Black Sox baseball cap, circa 1932 and borrowed from Mulder,
hid Scully's bright hair.

She listened to the snip-snip of his wire cutters, followed by
the rattle of chain-link as he pulled aside a section of fence.
He slipped through the breach like a cat burglar, then turned
to help her trespass onto government property.

Jesus, what had she been thinking when she agreed to come here
with him? This was foolhardy...not to mention illegal.

"Mulder, if we get caught--"

"Shhhhh," he hushed her again.

His fingers gripped her arm and drew her through the fence.
Once on the other side, she knelt next to him...close enough to
smell his antiperspirant, which to be honest was giving up the
ghost. The hike from the car had been a long one, over rough
terrain, and Mulder set a strenuous pace, jogging almost the
entire way. She'd worked up a sweat trying to keep up and
probably smelled equally sour.

"Look," he whispered.

She followed the point of his finger to where runway lights
illuminated a triangular-shaped aircraft to the east. Mulder
was right. The ship was unlike anything they'd ever seen
before.

Of course, that didn't make it extraterrestrial. Not in her
book.

"Here they come." Mulder flattened himself in the weeds,
stretching out on his stomach while he peered at the runway
through a pair of high-powered binoculars.

Crickets whined in the scrub around them. Human voices drifted
across the desert from the tarmac. The air smelled like dry
grass, sage and ten thousand years of wind-scoured sand.

"What are they doing?" Scully asked, squinting at the uniformed
men who circled the craft. She crouched on hands and knees,
hunching low, but refusing to lie on her belly the way Mulder
was doing. The ground chilled her palms and she found herself
wishing she'd worn gloves.

"I think they're gonna do it."

"Do it?"

"Fly." He adjusted the focus of his binoculars. "Uh-oh."

"What's the matter?" Goosebumps sprouted on her arms at his
tone. Unable to make out anything from this distance, she had
to rely on his eyes, trust his instincts.

"I recognize one of them."

"Who?"

"Lisa Ianelli."

Lisa Ianelli -- girlfriend of time traveler Jason Nichols.
What was she doing here?

"Hang on, Scully--" Mulder dropped his binoculars and grabbed
her arm.

A chugging rumble emanated from the aircraft, causing the
uniformed onlookers to scurry away. When the ship rose from
the ground, it floated straight up, like a Harrier jet. It
hung there, forty feet in the air, for ten seconds or so.
Black and shaped like a shallow pyramid, it carried no
insignia, no markings of any kind. Each of its triangular sides
looked to be about thirty feet long. The bottom was flat and
had a light at each point and a circular depression in the
center. Six lights, arranged in a hexagon pattern, glowed
around the inner circle.

The mysterious craft suddenly shot straight up, vanishing
against the backdrop of stars, while causing an aftershock
that rippled the sky. Sand and debris blasted the surrounding
landscape. A stinging wind howled past Mulder and Scully,
pinning them to the desert floor, while a sonic boom vibrated
their bones.

Scully covered her head as the wind siphoned oxygen from her
lungs. The last thing she remembered before losing
consciousness was the feel of Mulder's fingers clutching
desperately to the sleeve of her jacket.

* * *

Sun straight overhead. Painfully bright. Buzzing deerflies.
Sweet smell of fresh grass...mixed with the musky odor of
livestock.

Mulder groaned and tried to get his bearings. He was lying
face down on the ground. Jesus, his head ached. His mouth felt
bone dry and tasted sour, like...vomit. Oh, Christ, he'd
thrown up at some point. He wiped his lips on his sleeve, and,
blinking against the bright sun, looked around for Scully.

She was stretched out on the grass six feet away and appeared
to be unconscious.

"Sc-scully?" He coughed and swallowed, trying to moisten his
mouth.

She didn't move, so he pushed himself into a sitting position.
Every muscle pained him as he scooted closer and tapped her
arm.

"Scully?"

He could see dried blood caking her hairline, drawing flies.
It pissed him off to see them there. What had happened to her
cap? His head swiveled stupidly as he searched for it.

"Scullee-scullee-scullee," he chanted, patting her hand. He
felt queasy and lightheaded. How long had they been lying like
this? he wondered. Where the hell was the Air Base? And the
desert...?

Clearly, they weren't in northwestern Utah anymore. They were
on a broad, grassy meadow.

About ten yards away, six scrawny vultures formed a semicircle
around them. The birds watched him with cautious eyes. One
hopped closer.

"Get the hell outta here!" he yelled, causing the buzzards to
flap their wings and retreat.

In the distance, where the field met the forest, there was a
herd of large, wooly...what exactly were those things? Too big
for cows. Buffalo maybe? No, they had...tusks! Elephants?

He searched for his binoculars. Quickly locating them in the
grass, he lifted them to his eyes and focused on the animals.

"Oh, shhhit."

Not elephants.

Mastodons.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

CHAPTER ONE

SOMEWHERE IN NORTHWESTERN UTAH
LATE PLEISTOCENE
LATE SPRING, MIDDAY

Mulder removed his jacket, folded it in half and tucked it
beneath Scully's head. Then he sat down beside her, prepared
to wait as long as necessary for her to regain consciousness.

He passed the time by peering through his binoculars at the
herd of mastodons, shooing flies from Scully's pale face, and
chucking stones at the persistent vultures.

He and Scully were in a hell of a predicament, and although he
considered himself an able and brave man -- FBI-trained, with
almost a decade of field experience -- he had to admit that
the sight of Scully lying there as motionless as one of her
cadavers scared the crap out of him.

Watching over her, feeling utterly helpless, he was reminded
of that terrible night when he was a kid, sitting beside the
charred ruins of his boyhood friend's burned house. Would
safeguarding Scully from a flock of hungry vultures give him
years of nightmares, too? A phobia of buzzards, maybe, to go
along with his fear of fire?

And what if he lost her...?

Please, Scully, he pleaded silently. Open your eyes, pleeease.

The gash in her temple looked nasty -- ragged and oozing
blood. A purple-black bruise the size of his palm darkened her
forehead on the left side of her face, discoloring her skin
from her hairline to her cheekbone. The size of the swelling
unnerved him. He wished he'd been hurt instead of her, not
just because he wanted to take away her suffering, but also
because, with her medical knowledge, she would know how to
patch him back together. As it was, he had no idea how to
treat a head injury. And this one looked serious.

He was wallowing in feelings of ineptitude when the mastodons
began plodding west across the grassland, disappearing one-by-
one into the far off valley. The damn buzzards remained where
they were, eyes trained on Scully's motionless form. Mulder
hated their presumption, and considered shooting a couple of
them with his gun.

Common sense prevailed. His clip was full, but every bullet
might prove precious later on.

Mulder picked up another stone and pitched it like a fastball
at the second bird from the end. He caught the buzzard dead
center in its chest, causing it to squawk and hop away.

Take that, you fucking son-of-a-bitch.

The afternoon ticked slowly by. The sun beat down, intense and
fiery hot. Mulder rotated his position as the sun moved,
trying to keep Scully in the shadow of his body to shield her
as much as possible from the sun's harsh rays. Her unprotected
skin would burn easily out here in the open.

Should he pick her up and carry her into the shade? he
wondered. The meadow merged into woodland about 500 yards to
the north. He worried that moving her might cause some sort of
internal damage. It was possible she had a neck injury or a
broken bone.

Chiding himself for not thinking of it sooner, he began to
check her for breaks. He gently patted her arms and legs, and
then unzipped her jacket to run his palms carefully over her
ribs. Everything seemed fine. But what did he know? Maybe it
wasn't possible to feel a rib fracture.

For the next four hours he continued to lean over her, his
back bearing the brunt of the sun's rays. The dark fabric of
his turtleneck soaked in the heat, making him sweaty and
restless. The vultures seemed to sense his discomfort and
inched closer. In a fit of irritation, he yanked his shirt up
over his head and flung it at them, only to become more
aggravated when it fell short of its mark.

Thank God, a steady breeze puffed across the open meadow,
helping to cool his temper along with the sweat on his bare
back. He plucked a blade of grass and chewed it, feeling like
some hayseed from East Bumfuck, but thankful for the brief
distraction of its tart flavor.

Late in the afternoon Scully finally stirred.

"Mulder?"

"I'm here."

Gently, he stroked her hair, combing it back from her bloodied
forehead. Her eyelids fluttered and opened. Relief prickled
his skin when her eyes focused on his face and she appeared to
recognize him.

He smiled at her and said, "Hey."

She offered him a feeble smile in return, and then looked past
him to the field of fresh grass and the semi-circle of
vultures.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"When."

"Excuse me?"

"Not 'where,' Scully -- 'when.' *When* are we."

She rose on one elbow and winced from the effort. The vultures
backed away, beating their wings and clucking with almost
human disappointment over her apparent recovery.

"Mulder, what are you saying?"

"How's your American History?"

"Why?"

Deciding it might be best to ease into the truth, he gave a
small shrug and tried to look unconcerned. "It's possible we
might have...um...traveled back in time."

"Traveled--?" Now she sat bolt upright. "How far back in
time?"

He wanted to tell her that everything was going to be all
right and there was nothing to be overly concerned about. Her
physical condition was the most important thing right now, and
she needed to be careful not to injure herself any more than
she already was. On the other hand, he knew she wouldn't
tolerate being kept in the dark; she didn't like being coddled
any more than he did. So instead of saying more, he offered
her another shrug.

"70s? 60s? 50s?" she asked.

"Getting warmer."

"Jesus, Mulder." She gazed at the meadow, the forest, and,
farther away, the snow-covered mountain peaks.

No airplanes flew overhead, no traffic passed by, no buildings
stood anywhere within view.

"Turn of the century?" she asked.

"More like...Late Pleistocene."

"I don't believe it. It isn't possible." She tentatively
prodded the bruise on her forehead as if her injury was the
cause of her confusion. "People can't travel back in time."

"If you want, I can quote your graduate thesis. 'Although
common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the
laws of quantum physics--'"

"I know what I wrote," she snapped. "I was barely out of my
teens at the time. What the hell did I know?"

He didn't want to make her angrier by saying he agreed with
her youthful hypothesis, so instead he kept his tone even and
applied the practiced calm he usually reserved for reluctant
witnesses. "We've seen something like this before," he
reminded her gently. "And Lisa Ianelli was at Hill Air Force
Base."

The weight of his words sunk in and Scully's shoulders
slumped.

"Tachyons," she said, understanding the implications.

He nodded. "Subatomic particles that can travel faster than
the speed of light and go back in time--"

"But only for a few seconds and only at a temperature of
absolute zero," she interrupted. "Mulder, in case you hadn't
noticed, we were never frozen."

"I can't explain that, but it's possible Lisa Ianelli
discovered another method, a way to travel through time that
doesn't require freezing." He reached out and stroked her
cheek, careful to avoid the bruise there. "I saw something,
Scully." He knew this was going to sound ridiculous. "I
saw...mastodons."

"Mastodons?" She looked as if she might actually laugh. "Okay,
Mulder. Let's assume for the sake of argument that we've
somehow traveled back in time...to the Pleistocene...or
whenever...not that I believe that. But *if* it were true,
then how do we get back?"

Well, that was the sixty-four-thousand dollar question, wasn't
it?

Now it was his turn to study their surroundings. The sun was
low in the sky. It would be dark in another couple of hours,
and no magic doorways to 1998 seemed to be presenting
themselves.

"I'm...I'm not sure we can get back."

Arching an eyebrow, she waited for him to say more. No doubt
she expected him to launch into one of his typical numinous
theories, but this was one X-File that had him stumped. It
didn't help that he was too thirsty and too hungry to
concentrate on gravitational anomalies, event horizons, or
para-physics.

"We need to find drinking water before the sun sets," he said,
rising to his feet. His knees ached from sitting for so long.
He reached out a hand to help her up, and hoped she was
feeling fit enough to travel. "Do you think you can walk?"

She nodded and took his hand, allowing him to pull her to her
feet. Swaying on unsteady legs, she asked, "Which way, Mr.
Indian Guide?"

He pivoted, considering the possibilities. Did it make sense
to head toward the mountains? Snowmelt would mean freshwater
streams, right? But which mountains? There were mountains on
every side. The mastodons had headed west. They would be
looking for water, wouldn't they?

Or were mastodons like camels?

"West," he said, going with his gut and the wisdom of the
mastodons.

*   *   *

Peach-colored clouds striped the evening sky, promising a
spectacular sunset. The sun appeared wedged between two
mountain peaks, which Scully guessed were part of the
Newfoundland Mountains...assuming she and Mulder were still
anywhere on or near Hill Air Force Base in Box Elder County,
Utah. Unfortunately, they'd left their map in the car, which
would be in the opposite direction, if anywhere at all.

She tried to picture what the map had looked like. She knew
Hill was a large backward z-shaped parcel of land located
between Great Salt Lake to the east and the Great Salt Lake
Desert to the west. The Base included the southernmost region
of the dry Newfoundland Evaporation Basin, as well as the
foothills of the Newfoundland Mountains. Squinting at the
tallest rise, she guessed it might be Desert Peak, the range's
highest point.

Or not. The grassy meadow they were crossing bore no
resemblance to the desert they'd been in last night.

Mulder was walking several paces ahead of her, leading them
along a broad trail of trampled grass. She concentrated on the
relentless swing of his jacket, which dangled from his left
fist. He had slung his binoculars around his neck so that the
strap crossed his back from right shoulder to left hip. His
shirt was tied loosely around his waist.

Not feeling as warm as he seemed to, she kept her coat on and
hugged it tightly across her chest. In the back of her mind,
it occurred to her that she might be in shock, a result of the
blow to her head.

The meadow sloped gradually downhill. Mulder's elongated
shadow stretched out behind him, reminding her of Dr. Chester
Banton, the dark matter scientist with a lethal shadow. She
didn't fear Mulder's shadow; to the contrary, she kept herself
purposely inside it, feeling it somehow tethered her to him.
If she happened to stumble or fall, it might pull him up
short, alerting him to her trouble. Crazy idea, she knew, but
she refused to step outside it in any case.

"Watch out for the prairie pies," he warned, pointing to an
enormous mound of fresh dung. "Told you I saw a mastodon. That
ain't no cow patty."

Had he really seen mastodons?

No, it was impossible; this was just a bad dream, it had to
be, and she was going to wake up any minute in her own bed.
Maybe she would tell Mulder about her nightmare over coffee
and Danish at the cart outside the second-floor bullpen
tomorrow morning. He would tease her and then, after they
returned to their office, he would pull out a stack of
mastodon-related X-Files. "Mastodon Footprints Discovered on
Mars" or "Woman Gives Birth to Boy With Tusks and Trunk;
Father Was Mastodon in Former Life."

"You okay, Scully?" He was suddenly beside her, one arm
gripping her shoulders, holding her up. She felt dizzy. Had
she stopped walking? "Do you need to rest?"

"I'm fi--" Her knees buckled.

He lowered her gently to the ground. "Sit for a minute. Your
forehead's bleeding again." He untied the shirt from his waist
and gently blotted her temple with it.

"I'm thirsty."

"I know. Me, too." He held her tenderly. "We'll find water
soon."

She leaned into him, thankful for his company and his care,
and wanting more than anything to believe him about the water.
Her throat ached for a drink. Then the edges of her vision
began to fray, as if her eyes were falling victim to a too-
early sunset. Mosquito-sized flecks floated between her and
Mulder's worried expression. The flecks swarmed and thickened
until Mulder became lost in a gray snowstorm that made her
think of all the grainy television sets in all the sleazy
motels where they'd stayed over the years. Like the two-room
hotel in Home, Pennsylvania, where she watched Mulder rotate
the TV antenna, trying to bring its picture into focus. Wild
animal sounds came from the staticky set. Not mastodons, but
jackals or wolves. Predatory creatures. She'd left Mulder
alone in that room, which couldn't be locked because he'd let
her have the safer room, the one with the lock that worked.
He'd risked his life for her.

She suddenly felt as if she were being bent in half and lifted
off her feet. Blood rushed to her face as her head hung lower
than her heart. Her hands weighed a thousand pounds, it
seemed, and she let her arms dangle there, above her head...or
below her head, whichever. Someone embraced her legs a million
miles away. She guessed she was being carried, not like a
fairytale princess, but in the undignified position of a
fireman's carry. Was it Mulder who stole her away?

Blinded by her lightheadedness and the drape of her upside-
down hair, she wanted to cry for help, but her voice wouldn't
cooperate.

Again she thought of Home, Pennsylvania. Not the Peacock
brothers or their bizarre, over-protective mother, but
Mulder's romantic notions about country life.

//Only place you had to be on time was home for dinner. Never
had to lock your doors. No modems, no faxes, no cell phones.//

Like here...the Pleistocene, according to Mulder.

//If I had to settle down, build a home...be a place like
this.//

Had he brought them here on purpose, in search of a simpler
life? No, that was ridiculous. He was a city boy, despite his
protestations. That day in Home, he'd been high on "eau de
baseball."

She took a sniff. No smell of cowhide. Eau de Mulder? He was
right under her nose. Or maybe she was underneath him? God,
everything was topsy-turvy.

Usually she hated feeling so muddled. But right now, she felt
inexplicably calm. Breathing in his familiar scent, she
allowed herself to fall deeper into the safe haven of his
shadow.

*   *   *

//Hopes are dashed
People forget
Forget they're hiding.//

Was Mulder singing?

//In a tachyon flux
Tachyon flux -- it's a put on
Come on join the party...//

Yes, Mulder was singing...a butchered rendition of The Who's
"Eminent Front."

"That isn't how the song goes," she murmured.

"Scully?"

She felt herself slide from his shoulder. His fingers gripped
her hips as he lowered her feet to the ground.

"You're awake."

"Yes, I'm awake." She put a hand on his arm for balance and
looked around. Only the barest hint of sunlight remained,
outlining the far-off mountains. A quarter moon rose in the
east, brilliant white against a purple-black sky. A spray of
stars glittered overhead. Trees dotted the meadow, their
leaves whispering in the evening breeze. The landscape was
storybook beautiful. "How long was I...?" She gestured at his
shoulder.

"Not long."

"We're not going to find water tonight, are we?"

A smile tugged at his lips. "Don't be so pessimistic." He
pointed past her, and she turned to see moonlight on water at
the bottom of the grassy slope.

The prospect of a drink drew her forward. She began to walk,
and then run. Water! Thank God! Sprinting down the hill, she
suddenly felt as giddy as a child. The cool evening air rushed
past her ears, swept her hair away from her overly hot
forehead, filled her eyes with a blur of tears. Each breath
ballooned her chest with fresh energy. The ground was spongy
beneath her feet, making her feel weightless, as if she could
fly, and she could smell the sweet scent of fresh grass with
every step.

Fifty yards from the river, she pulled up short. Something was
moving at the water's edge. Several somethings. She heard the
splash of water, a muted thud, a chuff of air from large
lungs.

Mulder caught up with her, and stopped, too, his skin shiny
with sweat in the moonlight. He raised his binoculars to
survey the riverbank.

"What are they?" she asked, trying to steady her breathing.
"Mastodons?"

He lowered the binoculars and dovetailed his fingers with
hers. "No. Just horses. Not even very big ones. Come on." He
tugged her toward them.

As all trace of sunlight vanished from the western sky, stars
multiplied in the heavens and a mirror image of the moon
floated on the river's inky surface. Scully could smell the
water, and the sharp, dusty odor of the horses.

The horses caught wind of them, too, and moved downstream. At
the water's edge, she released Mulder's hand and dropped to
her knees on the grassy bank. She filled her cupped palms. The
water was cold, numbing her fingers, but tasting delicious.
She scooped handful after handful into her mouth. Mulder knelt
beside her and drank greedily, too, before plunging his whole
head beneath the surface to rinse his hair and scrub at his
neck.

Raising his head, he waggled his eyebrows and asked, "Wanna go
skinny dipping?"

As far as she could tell in the dark, the river was about a
hundred and fifty yards wide, and curved in a giant oxbow. Its
current appeared to be slow moving. There were no exposed
boulders and no whitewater rapids.

"We don't know what's in there."

"Nothing, I hope, since we just drank a couple of gallons."

"No, I mean like snapping turtles or the equivalent of
Pleistocene piranha."

"As long as there are no flukemen."

He stood, untied his shirt from his waist, and let it drop to
the ground on top of his jacket. Was he really going to--? He
removed the binoculars from around his neck and set them
beside his clothes.

"No peeking," he warned as he toed off his shoes and
unfastened his pants.

"You're not--?"

Socks and shorts off, he released a bloodcurdling Tarzan yell,
and then bulldozed naked into the water.

Well, that was Mulder for you, jumping in feet first. Good to
know he hadn't changed, even if the rest of the world was
unrecognizable.

 "Whoa! Water's cold! Come on in."

"No thanks."

"Don't know what you're missing."

He dove beneath the surface as if to prove his point. When his
head popped back up a moment later, he shook water from his
hair, and then swam in a leisurely circle several yards out
from shore.

Scully wrapped her arms around her knees and watched him roll
onto his back to float with arms outstretched, his skin gilded
by moonlight. Fireflies blinked all along the riverbank,
dancing above the tall reeds. Bullfrogs harrumphed, marking
territory with their deep base voices. A nervous horse
whinnied somewhere downstream.

Had they really traveled back in time more than ten thousand
years? Or was this place a 20th Century Garden of Eden, an
untouched oasis in an otherwise modern world? Mulder claimed
to have seen mastodons. But did he know the difference between
a modern day elephant and a prehistoric one?

Suppose an elephant or two had escaped from a local zoo, like
the time Ganesha escaped from its cage in Fairfield, Idaho...
Wasn't that a more likely explanation than time travel?

Scully suddenly missed her comfortable apartment. A hot bubble
bath would feel wonderful right now. And some take-out Thai
food would hit the spot. She mentally added Ibuprofen for her
headache, scented candles for her nerves, and an interesting
novel -- maybe Jose Chung's newest thriller -- to take her
mind off air bases and time travel.

Out in the river, Mulder swam lazily toward shore. He waded
the last few yards, rising from the river like a merman. Water
poured from his glistening skin as he returned to her.
Silhouetted against the moonlit water, liberated from his
everyday attire, he looked extraordinarily handsome -- lean,
graceful, even a little dangerous.

And sexy.

Blood rose in her cheeks as a pleasant heaviness settled into
her pelvis. The sight of him was arousing her, she realized,
and she quickly looked away, averting her stare and feeling
voyeuristic and a little ashamed of herself. Mulder was her
partner. Their relationship was based on professional respect.
She had no right to ogle him.

Hand raised to her temple, she worried she was losing her
mind. She was feeling dizzy and acting irrationally. Her head
was pounding.

She heard him drop down on the grass beside her, and she
glanced in his direction, being careful to keep her eyes
leveled above his shoulders. He used his shirt to briskly dry
himself.

"No piranha," he said.

"Your teeth are chattering."

"But I smell better."

He began to dress, so she moved away -- to give him privacy,
and to wash her face.

Crouched at the water's edge, she removed her jacket, and
rolled up her shirtsleeves. Again she filled her hands with
cold water, but this time she used it to gently clean the gash
at her hairline. Her forehead felt tender where it had been
cut. She gently rinsed away grit and dried blood, careful not
to reopen the wound.

"Can I help?" Mulder appeared beside her, fully dressed and
carrying a handkerchief in his hand. "It's clean, I promise."
He dipped the handkerchief into the water and then used it to
dab at her wound.

She marveled at the fact he carried something as old-fashioned
as a handkerchief. It made her realize she knew almost nothing
about his upbringing. The handkerchief brought to mind an
image of a well-mannered little boy, dressed and pressed like
a gentleman, which contradicted her earlier impression of him
as a hellion -- a daredevil who would jump feet first and buck
naked into an Ice Age river.

As always, Mulder was difficult to peg.

"How does it look?" she asked.

"Not too bad." He stroked the area, pushing her hair away from
the wound. "The mark of an experienced G-Woman."

"Wonderf--"

She startled when a pair of yellow-green eyes caught her
attention on the opposite shore. They peered back at her from
behind a veil of tall weeds.

She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Mulder, look."

"I see it."

She heard him release the snap on his holster and pull out his
gun.

"Let's go," he whispered.

"Where?"

"Uphill. Away from here." He gripped her arm and hauled her to
her feet.

She glanced across the river. The green eyes had vanished. She
grabbed her coat.

Then a growl sounded -- a large cat of some kind. A splash of
water told her it was coming after them. Her heart began to
hammer in her chest. Her legs felt rubbery, her feet numb.

Mulder yanked hard on her arm. "Hurry! Unless you want to
become cat food for a saber-toothed tiger."

Saber-toothed tiger?

The cat suddenly roared, and Scully ran for all she was worth.

*  *  *

Mulder sprinted up the hill, clutching Scully's arm. He could
hear her gasping for breath. God, please don't let her pass
out, he thought. How far back was the damn cat?

As soon as they reached the woods, he began searching for a
tree to climb. He selected a tall, straight evergreen, not too
big around, but with lots of stout branches.

"Up," he ordered Scully, shoving her through a veil of lower
limbs. Unsure of the cat's location, he quickly grabbed a
branch and hauled himself up after her.

"Mulder, I can't see."

"Just climb."

He heard her scrambling for footholds.

Grasping her hips, he propelled her higher.

"Watch your head."

He scaled several more branches.

"I think I'm about as high as--"

The cat roared beneath them.

"Higher."

"Mul--"

"Go!"

Three, four, five more branches. They were nearing the top; he
could feel the tree beginning to sway.

Below them, the cat growled. Mulder pushed Scully higher.

Finally, they could go no further and Scully settled on a
sturdy branch. He perched next to her and dug his flashlight
from his pocket. Aimed down the trunk of the tree, the light
reflected in the cat's yellow-green eyes.

Jesus, the animal was huge -- it looked twice as heavy as a
modern day lion, although not any taller or longer. Its tail
was stubby, like a bobcat, but what it lacked on the rear end,
it more than made up for on the front, where foot-long fangs
protruded from its enormous upper jaw. No doubt they could rip
open a man's belly with one swipe.

It was an honest-to-fucking-goodness saber-toothed tiger.

"Must be the kitty chow," he commented.

Scully sat shivering between him and the tree trunk. He
wrapped his gun arm around her to secure himself to her and
the tree. With his other hand, he kept his light aimed at the
cat.

"Can it climb up here?" Scully asked.

"If it tries, it won't get past *this*." He waggled his gun.

She glanced at the weapon. "Don't drop it."

 "When have I ever dropped my gun?"

She said nothing. After a few moments of silence, he angled
his flashlight at her face, revealing her skeptical
expression. She arched one graceful eyebrow.

"Never," he argued.

Her other eyebrow climbed to join the first.

He turned the flashlight back on the cat. "Not while sitting
in a tree."

Suddenly the cat lunged upward and positioned itself on the
bottommost branch. The tree shook, and Mulder and Scully both
gasped.

He leveled his gun at the cat. The motion put her off balance,
and she caught herself by latching onto his thigh, squeezing
hard.

"Not that I'm objecting, Scully, but now may not be the best
time," he whispered, indicating her hand with a tilt of his
head.

"I just...I didn't want to fall." She released him.

They watched the cat balance on its hind legs, while it
searched with its forepaws for a higher perch.

"You won't fall," he assured her, hugging his arm around her
again. "I won't let you."

The cat jumped back to the ground and resumed its pacing.

"There. You see? Nothing to worry about."

"We could still fall out of the tree in our sleep," she said.

"I won't be sleeping." He tracked the cat with his light.

"Maybe you should sing," she suggested. "That way, I'll know
you're awake." She leaned into him. Her trembling seemed
worse.

Okay, he'd sing. Just to keep her mind off their predicament.
Hell, to keep *his* mind off their predicament. He cleared his
throat.

"Mulder and Scully, sitting in a tree, "K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

He shined his light at her to see her reaction.

She shook her head. "In your dreams, Mulder."

He smiled, and continued his sing-songy rhyme, "First comes
loooove..."

He lightly tapped the tip of her nose with his flashlight,
making her frown. She batted his hand away.

"Then comes marriage..."

She still refused to smile.

"And then comes Mulder with a baby carriage," he finished
quickly.

"Isn't that supposed to be 'and then comes *Scully* with a
baby carriage?'"

"I'm a man of the 90s, Scully."

"Ah." After a minute of silence, she asked, "Mulder, are you
afraid?"

"Nope," he lied.

"It doesn't worry you that we may be thousands of years from
where we're supposed to be?"

Oh yeah, there was that pesky time travel thing. "Who says
we're not supposed to be right here?"

"In a tree? With a tiger waiting to devour us the moment we
fall?"

"I told you, we're not going to fall."

Tucking her more firmly into the crook of his arm, he decided
to sing some more. Something appropriate for the occasion.
Something like...

"I see a bad moon rising. I see trouble on the way--"

"Oh, brother."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

CHAPTER TWO

Mulder hadn't slept a wink. And it had been a helluva long
night. Ass aching, he shifted a bit on his tree branch in an
unsuccessful effort to find a more comfortable position
without waking Scully. Miraculously, she was asleep, wedged
between him and the trunk of the tree, her head resting on his
shoulder. The sun was still hidden behind the mountains, but
the eastern sky was beginning to lighten above the craggy
peaks, and a blond strip of clouds had developed along the
horizon.

The saber-toothed tiger was gone. It had abandoned its night-
long vigil more than an hour ago when a herd of small horses
passed close by, skirting the edge of the woods, heading
toward the river. The cat followed the ponies. Several minutes
later, Mulder was startled by the pitiful bleat of an animal
in its death throes. The noise woke Scully from her sleep, and
Mulder reassured her, convincing her to settle back against
his shoulder. Apparently exhausted, she laid her head on him
without argument and dozed off again.

The cat was probably up on the hill right now, filling its
belly with fresh meat. Mulder's stomach growled. He hadn't had
a bite to eat since the day before yesterday when he'd downed
two bacon double-cheeseburgers, a pistachio flavored milkshake
-- extra large -- and a side order of jumbo onion rings.
Shoulda super-sized it, he thought. Damn, he was hungry; the
bark on this tree was beginning to look good enough to eat.

He was thirsty again, too.

And he had to pee.

Badly.

Looking down at the ground, he estimated they were sitting
about twenty feet up. Hmm. If he peed from here, he might be
able to hit that pinecone on the second branch from the
bottom. He tried to gauge the necessary trajectory. The lack
of wind would help his aim, but he wasn't altogether sure he
could piss sitting down. And suppose Scully woke up before he
was finished. How embarrassing would that be?

On the other hand, his bladder felt ready to bust. He had to
do *something* -- now.

"Scully?" He reached over and traced her jaw from earlobe to
chin with his index finger.

She stirred and slowly opened her eyes. "Time z'it?" she
asked, stifling a yawn.

"Sunrise. Almost."

She blinked sleepily at the still-dark sky. "No it isn't."

"Yeah...well...I gotta whiz, so good morning, sunshine." He
slid off the branch and lowered his feet to the limb below
him.

"No chance you could wait until it's actually light out? The
tiger--"

"Scully, when a man says he's gotta go, he's gotta go." He
pivoted so that he could help her down. "Besides, the tiger
left."

She gripped his shoulders while he guided her hips off her
perch. After setting her feet on the branch beside his, he
acted as a spotter while she got herself turned around.

"You want me to climb down first?" he asked.

"No, I'll go...if you're sure the tiger is gone."

"You can see for yourself it's not there."

"Yes, but where is it?"

Telling her it killed and ate a horse seemed counterproductive
to getting her out of the tree, so he dodged the truth by
saying, "It's probably peeing."

She rolled her eyes, then began to slowly inch her way down to
the next branch. Then the next. He stood above her, rocking
from foot to foot, his bladder aching.

"Any chance you could speed things up a little, Scully?"

"I'm going as fast as I can."

"Well, you're gonna need an umbrella if you don't pick up the
pace," he warned, looking down at the top of her head.
"Raindrops keep fallin' on your head--"

"All right already." She began to descend more quickly, either
out of sympathy or because she was now closing in on terra
firma. He followed her down, just a step or two above her
head. When she reached the bottom branch, she jumped to the
ground.

"Little girls' room is around back," she said, circling the
tree. "Don't even think about peeking."

"I've got something else on my mind, Scully." He jumped the
last few feet to the ground, too. "And it has nothing to do
with looking at you." He spun to face the trunk, and unzipped
his pants...just in the nick of time. Ahhh! Holy Jesus, Joseph
and Mary.

His head began to clear as his bladder emptied.

When he finished, he called to her, "You done?"

"Yes."

Zipping his fly, he waited another moment or two, just in
case. Didn't want to catch her with her pants down --
literally. When he did finally step around the tree, he found
that she was standing several paces away, her back to him,
pants up, shirt tucked in. She was looking out through the
drape of evergreen branches at the distant mountain peaks,
where clouds the color of nickel split the morning sun into
finger-like rays.

Without taking her eyes from the prehistoric dawn, she began
to recite a poem: "Way back in the days when the grass was
still green, and the pond was still wet and the clouds were
still clean..."

The verse sounded familiar. Edna St. Vincent Millay?

She continued the verse, "And the song of the Swomee-Swans
rang out in space, one morning, I came to this glorious
place."

Not Millay. Dr. Seuss.

Honestly, he had expected her to be...well, less than
enthusiastic about their circumstances. Yet here she was
quoting Dr. Seuss, extolling the beauty of the landscape.

A gentle wind wafted through the branches. It carried the
scent of pine and it fluttered her hair. He sidled up next to
her.

God, she was beautiful.

Kiss her, his body urged. And although he'd experienced the
impulse many times in the past, familiarity didn't keep his
desire from sucker-punching the breath from his lungs or
turning the bones of his legs to Jell-o. Without even touching
her, he could feel their imaginary kiss. Her lips, soft
beneath his. Her breath, hot on his mouth. The wetness of her
tongue.

Stop it! If she suspected what was on his mind, she would knee
him in the nugs. Five years as partners, he knew she didn't
think of him in a sexual way. Never had and probably never
would. No sense fantasizing about things that weren't going to
happen. Besides, he owed her more respect than that.

To prevent himself from acting on his impulse, he lowered his
head, and whispered the last line of Seuss' verse into her
ear: "The bright-colored tufts of the Truffula Trees, mile
after mile in the fresh morning breeze."

She turned to smile up at him. God, her lips were so close. If
he leaned in juuust a little more...

"Pleistocene air seems to agree with you, Scully," he
whispered.

"Not at all. I've simply come to the conclusion that this is
all a figment of my imagination, a hallucination caused by the
blow to my head. I'm going to wake up any minute at Hill Air
Force Base."

"Scully, we're in the Ice Age."

"So you say. But until I see proof, I'm sticking to my
hallucination theory. It's more plausible than your time
travel idea."

"What does it take, Scully? A saber-toothed tiger to bite you
on the ass?" Please, not this old song and dance, their
perpetual pas de deux. "You saw the cat. We both saw it."

"I was tired and dizzy and it was dark. I'm not sure what I
saw--"

Groaning with frustration, he closed his eyes and threw back
his head.

It wasn't that he minded debating theories with her. As a
matter of fact, he rather enjoyed the way she challenged him.
She kept him on his toes, honed his investigative skills,
prevented him from becoming analytically lazy. However, it
irritated him to hear her refute what she'd seen with her own
eyes, or rationalize irrational events by forcing them into
more commonly held perspectives. Being rigorous was one thing,
but denying the truth was unacceptable.

He knew the only way to sway her, however, was to do it
logically, and that would take some time.

Scully squinted at the sunrise. "I admit I don't know where we
are or how we got here, but I can't accept that we're not
still in the 20th Century."

It was true the landscape looked nothing like modern day Utah.

He bent and plucked a flower from a scraggly patch at his
feet. "Something happened on that Air Base. Something that
sent us back tens of thousands of years."

"People can't travel through time," she maintained.

As usual she was going to make him work to prove his point.

"Physicists like Stephen Hawking have hypothesized the
existence of wormholes and closed time loops -- actual portals
through which matter can travel backward through time."

"Mulder, phenomena like extreme heat and gravity would make
the trip lethal for any organism."

"Maybe not. Three years ago, Jason Nichols was working on a
catalyst for a self-sustaining endothermic reaction that would
render those factors inconsequential." He held the flower
under her nose.

She sniffed it. "Sweet," she said, before continuing her
argument. "Jason died before he actually created his rapid
freezing agent."

"We saw it, Scully. And Lisa Ianelli saw it, too. Suppose she
finished Jason's work?" Mulder tucked the flower behind his
ear.

"Let me repeat what I said yesterday: We were never frozen."

"Suppose Lisa discovered another way..."

She raised a questioning eyebrow. "To withstand a trip through
a wormhole?"

"Yes, making time travel possible."

"Mulder, Lisa never administered any compound."

"Yeah, but suppose the catalyst isn't a compound, but a set of
circumstances."

"Caused by...?"

"Something mechanical, not biological."

"That kind of technology doesn't exist."

"Unless it's extraterrestrial."

She smiled. "You sound like Max Fenig, you know."

He supposed he did sound like Max.

"I mean it, Mulder. I can see your future crystal clear, and
unfortunately, I see myself right there with you." Her
expression changed to one of concern. "Mark my words: we're
going to end up as two card-carrying MUFON members, wearing
matching tinfoil caps to protect our minds from the imaginary
rays of extraterrestrial thought-control devices, while we
travel from one UFO hotspot to the next shouting to anyone
who'll listen 'they're here, they're here,' ad infinitum."

"Imaginary rays?"

"Don't you ever worry about driving everyone away, all of your
friends, your family, winding up old and lonely because you
were -- you *are* -- obsessed with things that the rest of the
world considers...well, insane, frankly?"

"I'll always have you. Won't I?" He nudged her arm until she
nodded in agreement. "Scully, I don't care what the rest of
the world thinks. Most people have their heads up their
asses."

She glanced at him. "You really believe that?"

"Seeing is believing, isn't it?"  He placed his hand on the
small of her back, turned her around and steered her out from
under the tree branches, intending to head back to the river
for a drink. "If it's right in front of your eyes, it must be-
-"

The river wound like a silver ribbon through the valley below.
Animals crowded its banks. Lots of animals. Lots and lots of
animals.

"Oh, my God," Scully gasped. Her voice rose in pitch. "Are
those...?"

Yes indeedy. Mastodons. At least two dozen of them. And a herd
of small horses. And bison, and something that looked like
camels, and a few unrecognizable things. The landscape was a
scene out of an African documentary, only these animals
weren't zebras or elephants or water buffalo. They were...

"Mastodons."

*   *   *

"My God," Scully repeated, unable to believe her eyes.

The behemoths certainly looked like illustrations she'd seen
of mastodons. She'd taken enough anthropology courses at the
University of Maryland to recognize the difference between Ice
Age proboscideans and their modern day cousins, and these were
definitely not elephants escaped from a zoo.

Whatever they were, at least two-dozen of them had gathered in
the valley along the riverbanks. The mature ones stood about
ten feet tall -- somewhat shorter than modern day African and
Asian elephants. Their ears were relatively small, and their
tusks were straight and parallel to the ground.

Scully tried to recall more details from Dr. Diamond's
classes. He'd described a wide variety of Pleistocene
megafauna, including mastodons, which had ranged across North
America from Alaska to central Mexico. Archeologists had
discovered mastodon bones alongside prehistoric spear points
and stone cutting tools, leading to the assumption that early
humans -- Clovis and Folsom cultures, the Paleo-Indians of
ancient North America -- had hunted and eaten the giant
mammals.

If memory served, all genera of megafaunal mammals, like the
musk oxen, giant bison, and camels she could see drinking
alongside the mastodons at the river below, had died out
sometime prior to 11,000 B.P.

Which could only mean...

Impossible. This had to be a hallucination. She and Mulder
were *not* in the Ice Age.

She needed to sit. Sinking onto her heels in the grass at the
edge of the meadow, she continued to stare at the prehistoric
scene in the valley below.

Mulder sat, too, and scanned the riverbanks through his
binoculars. "Looks like you gotta get up pretty early in the
morning to beat the breakfast crowd. Shall we cut the line?"

Was he insane? "N-no. We're staying right here until they're
gone."

"That could be quite a wait." He offered her the binoculars,
but she shook her head. She didn't think she was ready to look
at the gargantuans up close...not yet.

Ten minutes later, the mastodons began migrating slowly
downstream toward the forest. A group of camels moved in to
take their place. Camels...in northwestern Utah? It boggled
the mind. Oversized bison stood shoulder-deep in the river. A
variety of unfamiliar birds dotted both banks of the river,
looking like crumpled Kleenex from this distance. Horses,
deer, and some kind of big-horned sheep shared the watering
hole in cautious harmony.

Mulder plucked a blade of grass from the field and stuck it in
his mouth. He chewed on it for a minute or two before asking,
"Is there any significant difference between a mastodon and a
mammoth?"

"Their teeth," she answered numbly, wondering why he cared.

"Their teeth?"

"Yes...the word 'mastodon' is derived from the Greek 'mastos,'
meaning breast, and 'odont,' meaning tooth. It translates
literally to 'breast tooth.'"

"Breast...?" A smile nudged his cheek. "That's interesting."

"Yes, well...mastodons fed on spruce, primarily. So their
teeth had crowns consisting of distinct rounded cusps, which
helped them chew tough foliage. Mammoths, on the other hand,
grazed on grasses, so their teeth are...uh, *were* dissimilar.
Mammoths were also generally bigger than mastodons, with wider
heads, and curving tusks. Those..." -- she nodded at the
retreating behemoths -- "look like mastodons."

God, was she seriously considering the possibility that they
had traveled ten or twelve thousand years back in time? Her
hope that this was all a hallucination began to dwindle with
each new Pleistocene animal she spotted along the riverbank.
Faced with such a preponderance of evidence, she felt
compelled to acknowledge Mulder's theory of time travel as a
possible explanation for their present predicament.

"I guess I owe you an apology, Mulder."

He nodded his acceptance.

That was one of the things she liked most about Mulder. He
wasn't an I-told-you-so kind of guy. He didn't gloat.

"We've got to find a way back," she said.

He chewed his blade of grass with as much zeal as he crunched
sunflower seeds. "That might be a problem."

If they couldn't find a way back, they were in serious
trouble. 20th Century city slickers lost in an Ice Age
landscape, with no survival skills to speak of. They were FBI
trained, and could catch your average murderer or mutant
easily enough, but what good were handcuffs on saber-toothed
tigers? The Pleistocene world was full of larger-than-life
threats. And they carried only three guns between them. Ten
rounds per automatic plus the six rounds in Mulder's .38. That
wasn't going to last long here. Every single bullet would be
essential for protection *and* food.

Food. She was hungry right now. Mulder must be, too. It'd been
almost two days since their last meal.

She looked again at the excess of wildlife lining the shore.
Tons of protein on the hoof and no way to butcher or cook it.

They were without knives, matches, or anything that could hold
water. For that matter, they had no shelter, no sunscreen, no
insect repellent. No compass, either, or first aid kit. Not
even an aspirin. And already she missed the more commonplace
comforts of modern life -- like toilet paper.

They weren't prepared to last two days let alone...

Jesus, how long would they be here? Her heart began to hammer
at the thought of a week, a month, a--

"Empty your pockets, Mulder."

"Excuse me?"

"Inventory. I want to know what we've got to work with."

He shoved a fist into his right jacket pocket and pulled out
his flashlight and car and house keys, which he laid on the
ground beside the binoculars.

"And in here..." He pawed through his left coat pocket and
produced handcuffs, cell phone, a pair of latex gloves--

Wait! Her cell phone.

She snatched her own phone from her pocket, and dialed the
local FBI field office. "Why didn't I think of this sooner?"

"That's not gonna work."

"We'll see--"

The display window was lit, but blank.

She turned off the phone and tossed it onto the growing pile
of useless modern day junk.

"Anything else?" she asked, hopeful.

A newspaper clipping about UFO sightings at Hill Air Force
Base. FBI badge. Pack of sunflower seeds -- empty. That seemed
to disappoint Mulder more than anything so far. Dry cleaning
receipt. Car rental agreement. A pocketknife. The knife was
small, but serviceable.

"Wait." He held up a finger and dug into his pants pocket.
Handkerchief. Wallet. Comb. "Except for my gun, that's it," he
announced.

"Don't you mean *guns*?"

"No, I brought only one."

"But you always carry two guns."

"Well...not this trip."

Of all the times -- "Twenty rounds. That's all the protection
we've got."

"I'm pretty sure I have two condoms in my wallet." He grinned
at her.

"Oh, that's helpful."

"Not really. I think they expired in '95." He leaned back on
his elbows. "How about you, Scully? You packin' anything
useful?"

She emptied her pockets. Handcuffs. Latex gloves. Small pad of
paper and pen. House keys. Badge. Wallet. Oh! Breath mints!
She unwrapped the foil roll, popped one into her mouth and
then offered the rest to Mulder. She continued to pull items
from her jacket. Emery board. Freebie hotel sewing kit.
Compact. Lipstick. Was lipstick edible?

"That's all I have," she said, disappointed.

"Know what I'm wishing?" Mulder asked. He removed the flower
from behind his ear and tossed it to the ground.

"For a time machine?"

"No, but that's not a bad idea." He gave her a wry smile. "I
was wishing I'd been a bigger MacGyver fan." He began to
pocket his possessions. "That way I could build a time machine
out of our cell phones and my empty packet of sunflower
seeds." He waved the cellophane bag at her.

"You think MacGyver would need both phones?" She returned her
belongings to her pockets, too, and then rose to her feet.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Back to the field where we first arrived. If there's a way to
get home, it has to be there."

Mulder stood, too, concern creasing his brow. "Not
necessarily. We have no idea how we got here -- a wormhole,
time loop, something else. The portal may be closed, or
located elsewhere, or it may not exist at all."

 "We came through it once, we have to assume we can go back
the same way." She began hiking upland, determined to get away
from the river with all its strange creatures and frightening
implications. There had to be a portal of some kind back in
the field. There just had to be.

They hiked for about ten minutes, heading east, when Scully
suddenly slowed her pace. She realized she didn't know the way
since she'd been unconscious when Mulder carried her to the
river last night.

"Straight ahead," he said, in response to her confused look.
"It's not much further."

She pushed on, moving upland into the wind, which was picking
up. Clouds were gathering and the air felt considerably cooler
than it had yesterday.

They hadn't gone far when Mulder pointed to an area of
trampled grass thirty yards ahead.

Scully jogged to it. "Here?"

"This is the place." He joined her at its center.

The spot looked entirely unremarkable. No obvious portals, no
distortions in space and time, no shimmering doorways to the
future. This couldn't be it.

"You're sure?" she asked.

He pointed to a stain of dried blood in the grass. "That's
where you were laying."

Okay...the portal must be here then. They just needed to look
harder. She walked a tight circle around him, searching the
ground for any anomalous signs, waving her arms in front of
her, hoping to feel an inconsistent air current or an abnormal
gravitational pull. When she found nothing out of the
ordinary, she frantically widened her search.

There had to be a way out. They would find it; they had to.
Just keep looking. She circled him again. And again. Her head
throbbed where she'd been injured, and the pain made her
stomach queasy.

Mulder remained standing over the bloodstain, watching her
spiral outward around him. She thoroughly searched the ground,
the sky and everything in between.

"Scully..."

"It's here, Mulder."

"Scul--"

"It's here, I know it!"

It had to be...it had to be! They weren't equipped for the
Pleistocene. She didn't want to be stuck tens of thousands of
years in the past. Her family and her life were in 1998. She
liked living there. She wanted to go home. She didn't belong
here. Neither of them belonged here. Why wasn't Mulder
looking? Why was he just standing there?

"Help me, Mulder!"

Three strides and he was in front of her, blocking her search.
He took hold of her arms just as she collapsed against him.
She felt angry and frightened, and her head hurt so damn much.
When she buried her face against his chest, it was all she
could do to hold in her tears.

He stroked her back and said nothing. His soothing caress and
the soft kisses he pressed against the crown of her head
helped calm her pounding heart. He felt solid and real beneath
her fingers. She breathed him in. Felt his pulse drum beneath
her cheek.

When he cocooned her in his arms, she began to cry in earnest,
because she knew his embrace offered only an illusion of
safety.

He sank to his knees, taking her with him, cradling her
against his chest.

"Shhh," he whispered into her hair, and let her cry herself
out.

*   *   *

For several minutes after Scully's tears stopped, Mulder kept
his arms looped around her and smoothed her wind-whipped hair.

"Sorry," she sniffled.

He shrugged off her apology.

"No, really," she insisted. "I'm embarrassed."

He wiped tears from her flushed cheeks. The jagged slash at
her hairline looked inflamed and painful. Her skin felt fiery
beneath his hand.  "You're sick, Scully."

She stiffened in his arms. "I'm fine."

Yeah, right. He'd heard that damn phrase more times than he
cared to count.

Fuck fine. No one knew better than he did how hard Scully
worked to hide her vulnerability -- from the good ol' boys at
the Bureau, from her family, from him.

Especially from him.

The word vulnerable was an insult to her. Yet despite her
tough-as-nails demeanor, he'd seen her crack on occasion,
allowing him the rare opportunity to play hero. It was a role
he simultaneously loathed and aspired to. Loathed because it
necessarily meant she was in harm's way. Aspired to because he
wanted to be brave when it counted most, stopping at nothing
to protect her, trading his life for hers without a moment's
hesitation.

Truth was she almost never needed his help. She was able to
take care of herself and him, too.

He made no further comment about her injuries because he knew
it would make her uncomfortable, but he planned to keep a
close eye on her, whether she liked it or not.

A roll of thunder battered the surrounding hills. Storm clouds
packed the sky to the east.

"Looks like we're in for some bad weather," he said. "We need
to find cover."

And food. Christ, he felt as hungry as a liver-eating mutant
coming off a 30-year hibernation.

Another clap of thunder vibrated the air. Closer this time.
His decision was made. Shelter first, then food. Rising to his
feet, he hauled Scully up after him. All the color drained
from her face as she tried to balance on unsteady legs.

"Can you walk?" he asked, securing her in the crook of his
arm.

"Yeah. I'm just a little shaky."

Food momentarily vied for the top spot on their To Do list.
Scully's condition wasn't going to improve if she didn't get
some nourishment into her.

"Come on." He steered her toward the forest, which he hoped
would provide both food and shelter.

Slate-gray clouds blotted out the daylight. Thunder crept
closer each time it resounded. Mulder quickened his pace when
the first fat raindrop slapped his cheek. He towed Scully
across the wind-flogged meadow toward a gnarled evergreen that
protruded high above the surrounding pines. Its upper trunk
was corkscrewed in an odd s-shape, which he took as a good
sign. The deformity was testimony to its stamina and survival.
It had endured hardship, but in the end stood tall.

A lightning bolt sizzled through the dark sky, followed
immediately by a heart-stopping crack of thunder. The storm
was upon them and it was going to be a whopper.

"You okay?" he shouted, keeping his course. Her answer was
lost in the next explosion of thunder. With less than twenty
feet to go before they reached the tree, the sky opened,
deluging them with cold rain.

By the time they ducked beneath the branches, they were soaked
to the skin.

"Jesus!" she said, shivering.

A fork of lightning brightened the sky behind them, and
thunder crashed on the heels of the strike. Wind and rain
penetrated the boughs. They would need to move deeper into the
forest to find adequate cover.

"Mulder, look." She pointed overhead, up the trunk of the
tree.

Near the top was an ancient scorch mark just below the s-
shaped trunk.

"Lightning?"

"Maybe."

"Let's get out of here."

He snagged her hand and tugged her away from the tree, heading
for lower ground and denser cover. Lightning flared again and
the sharp odor of ozone fell with the rain.

The trees were enormous here, with broad old-growth trunks.
Giant ferns filled the understory. When a blowdown the size of
a tanker truck blocked their path, they detoured along the
rocky edge of a ravine.

"Watch your step," he warned. Hopping from one wet, moss-
covered stone to the next, he tried to avoid tripping on tree
roots that were as thick as his upper thigh. Off to his left,
a swift-moving stream ran north-south in a gully thirty feet
down. The banks were steep. Slippery pine needles and a layer
of last year's rotting leaves made walking hazardous. A fall
would be long and painful.

"You doing okay?" He glanced back at Scully. Rain had
plastered her hair to her head and her teeth were chattering
nonstop. Her chalky pallor shocked him. She stared back at him
with dull, red-rimmed eyes, the left one entirely surrounded
by the ugly bruise on her temple.

"I think I need to sit for a minute," she admitted.

"Just a little further," he urged, pulling her forward. Her
hands were ice cold. Her lips blue. He had to get her out of
the rain.

A densely needled evergreen up ahead looked like it might
provide some cover. It wasn't tall enough to attract
lightning, but might be thick enough to keep out most of the
rain. He stepped forward, heading for it, when the stones
beneath his feet rolled and gave way.

"Shit!" He struggled to keep his balance, but the ground
dropped out from under him and he stumbled over the edge into
the ravine, hitting his hip and shoulder hard as he fell.

Rolling and skidding, he grasped frantically for a handhold.
Gravity hauled him toward the stream. The wind was knocked
from his lungs when his ribs hit an outcropping of stone. He
somersaulted several more yards through mud and leaves, until
he landed with a splash in the water-filled gully.

God damn, the water was cold.

Gasping for a breath of air, he struggled to his knees and
scanned the trees on the upper embankment for Scully.

Fuck. Where the hell was she?

"Mulder!"

He followed the sound of her voice, and spotted her scrambling
down to him. She half-jogged, half-slid between boulders and
fallen branches.

Getting his feet under him, he staggered from the water. Now
his teeth were chattering, too, and he imagined his lips were
as blue as hers.

"Mulder...?" She made it safely down the embankment and rushed
to steady him. Eyes rounded with fear, she patted his arms and
legs, presumably checking for broken bones. Then she combed
through his rain-soaked hair, no doubt trying to rule out head
injury.

"I'm fine, Scully. Really." He looked down at his mud-
streaked, waterlogged clothes. "Just...wet."

His words didn't reassure her; she continued to feel him,
squeeze his arms, stroke his cheeks. Her hands were shaking,
he realized. Apparently his fall had scared her more than it
had him.

"I'm okay," he said again, capturing her nervous hands between
his palms. He brought her trembling fingertips to his lips and
kissed them. "Honest."

Tears filled her eyes. She opened her mouth to speak, but
nothing came out, so she simply nodded, letting him know she
believed him.

"Let's find a dry place to sit...relatively speaking." He
scanned the ravine, looking for any sort of shelter where they
might rest and catch their breath.

An outcropping caught his eye about a third of the way up the
embankment. Tucked beneath its overhang was a shallow notch
that looked big enough to hold them both and provide a modicum
of protection from the rain.

Gathering Scully beneath one wet arm, he helped her climb. The
notch turned out to be wider and deeper than he'd first
thought, roomy enough for the two of them to sit side by side.
With their knees drawn up, they would be completely out of the
rain.

Water sluiced over the outcropping above it, but the floor of
the little cave was bone dry. Moss softened the hard edges of
the stone floor and walls. He climbed in first, then offered a
hand to her. She allowed him to tug her in beside him, and
once they were seated, they backed as far into the cleft as
they could.

"Comfy?" he asked.

"Mm-hm." She slumped against the wall.

Lightning continued to flash outside, while thunder vibrated
through the ravine. Rain pounded the forest floor, cutting
visibility to no more than twenty or thirty feet. He could
barely see the stream from where they sat.

"Thirsty?" he asked.

"Yeah."

He leaned forward and cupped his hands beneath the spout of
water that was pouring from the rocks above. He managed to
hold onto a small amount, which he offered to her. She drank
eagerly from the well of his hands. "More?" he asked.

"Please."

He reached again for the waterfall.

"Mulder! Don't move!"

He froze, arms outstretched.

"What is it?"

"Snake."

"Bad snake?"

"Is there a good kind?"

He heard something slither above his head to his left. Then he
caught sight of it out of the corner of his eye. Jesus, it was
enormous.

It oozed out of a hole in the rocks, dropping its head to his
eye level. He held his breath while it dangled there, flicking
its tongue at him. Christ, the thing's head was as big as a
housecat's and its body was as thick as his arm.

Shit, when it rains, it fucking pours.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

CHAPTER THREE

"Mulder, don't move."

That was easy for her to say -- she wasn't nose-to-nose with a
huge, nasty, probably poisonous snake. Mulder held his breath
while it explored the air in front of his face with its
tongue. It was so close he could see his own panicked
expression reflected in its amber eyes.

Its skin was tannish-brown, as far as Mulder could tell with
his colorblind vision, and it had diamond-shaped markings
along its back. Two diagonal stripes ran from behind its eyes
to its upper jaw, just forward of the corners of its mouth.
The markings didn't tell him much; he knew next to nothing
about snakes...other than they tended to have sharp fangs and
gave him the creeps.

Not that he was *afraid* of them; he just didn't particularly
like them.

His eyes widened when its tail rattled. *Now* he was afraid.
Even a neophyte herpetologist knew a rattlesnake was
poisonous.

Scully whispered, "Hold perfectly still."

He heard her gun slide from its holster.

No, no, no, Scully, don't shoot it!

It was only an inch or two in front of his face! And she was
weak from fever and exhaustion, arms shaky, vision blurred--

CLICK! He flinched when he heard the safety released.

She leaned closer, gun held in outstretched hands. Her arms
were trembling...badly. He could hear her panting -- quick,
shallow, nervous-sounding breaths.

Or maybe that was him.

She repeated, "Don't move."

As if.

Her gun inched closer still and the snake began to rattle more
furiously. It opened its mouth. Two fangs, wet with venom,
glistened inside its gaping jaws, millimeters from Mulder's
nose.

Shit, shit, shit.

Scully's trigger finger slowly squeezed --

BANG! JESUSFUCKINGCHRIST! The gun went off, and the snake's
head exploded. The noise was god-awful. Mulder clapped his
hands over his ears, too late to block out the blast.
Gunpowder seared his cheek. Bits of snake splattered his face,
his clothes, the surrounding rocks. He swiped at his eyes,
clawed away scraps of gore, and hoped he wouldn't vomit.

Scully was saying something to him, but he couldn't hear a
word. His ears were ringing badly from the blast.

The headless reptile dangled from its crevice, bleeding from
its neck onto the stone floor.

He yanked it from its hole. "I may be deaf for the rest of my
life, but at least we have something to eat now," he said,
unable to hear his own voice.

The snake was eight feet long if it was an inch. He coiled its
thick body into a pile between his legs, and then dug into his
pocket for his knife.

Scully tapped his arm. Using hand signals, she volunteered to
skin and gut the snake. He was tempted to take her up on the
offer -- he didn't relish the idea of slicing and dicing a
giant snake -- but Scully looked absolutely drained of energy.
She held her gun loosely in her lap, shoulders slumped, eyes
shadowed by fatigue and fever.

"I'll do it," he said, not certain if she could hear him or
not. "You rest."

He scooted to the edge of the shelter and out into the pouring
rain, hauling the headless snake with him. It was too awkward
to carry down the steep embankment, so he heaved it into the
gully. It hit a ledge about two thirds of the way down, then
skidded and rolled to the bottom, where rainwater was chugging
through the valley, roiling around rocks, carrying leaves and
other debris with it.

He half walked, half slid down the muddy hillside, gathered
the carcass and dragged it into the chilly water. Wading up to
his knees, he searched for a flat stone to use as a work
surface. He quickly located one midway across the stream.

Once the snake was laid out on the stone, he had abso-fucking-
lutely no idea what to do next. Oh, sure, he knew the skin had
to come off, and there were probably bones that needed to be
removed, as well as guts of some sort that should come out.
But did snakes have lungs? Intestines? And what about the
venom? Where the hell was that located?

Guessing the poison was probably in or near the head, which
was now gone, he decided to not worry about it. He rolled the
snake onto its back and exposed its belly. Using his knife, he
made a shallow cut lengthwise from neck to rattle.

He inserted a finger beneath the skin at the neck and tugged.
It was difficult to grasp onto at first, but once he got the
hang of it, the skin pulled off easily in one unbroken piece.
When he got it stripped down to the tail, he cut it away,
rattles and all.

Well, that hadn't been too difficult.

Now for the messy part. Cutting a deeper slit the entire
length of the snake's belly, he exposed its guts. He plowed
the viscera out with his thumb, slopping them into the stream.
Bile stung the back of his throat as he shook a stubborn,
sticky rope of entrails from his fingers. Unlike Scully, he
hated touching the insides of things.

Slicing the meat into six-inch chunks was easier and less
messy than the gutting. He rinsed each piece in the stream,
cleaning off any blood and unidentified slime. It surprised
him how much the sight of the raw meat made his mouth water.
There was no way to cook it, of course, but at this point he
was too famished to care. And he doubted Scully would be
squeamish about eating it either. Hell, he'd seen her eat a
live bug once.

The amount of meat was substantial. He needed to find some way
to carry it. Leaving it temporarily on the stone, he waded to
shore to find an appropriate container or plate.

Ferns? Cedar boughs? Bark? He crossed to a birch tree and,
using his knife, cut a vertical slit in its smooth white bark.
It pulled easily away from the trunk in a large, rectangular
sheet.

Tah-dah! Instant platter. Eat my dust, MacGyver.

He returned to the stream and mounded the meat onto the bark.
He estimated he had about ten pounds altogether -- a veritable
feast for an Ice Age king and queen.

Carrying it proved more awkward than he'd anticipated. Two
steps from the stream and the topmost chunk tumbled onto the
ground. He stooped to grab it out of the dirt. Dried leaves
and mud clung to its sticky surface.

"Five second rule." No sense throwing away perfectly good
food. He shook off the debris and stuffed it into his mouth.

Jesus, it tasted wonderful, even with the dirt. A little
stringy. And bony. But firm and fleshy. Different from
anything he'd ever eaten, but in a good way. He carefully
extracted two needle-sharp bones from between his teeth and
flicked them to the ground.

That's when he saw it. The distinct imprint of a human foot in
the mud beside the stream.

The foot was bare, smaller than his own, but considerably
larger than Scully's, and the little toe was missing. The
print was relatively fresh; water filled the impression, but
the mud still held its shape despite the downpour.

Mulder glanced over his shoulder and scanned the surrounding
woods. The banks of the ravine rose steeply, twenty to thirty
feet on either side of the gully. Large old growth evergreens,
widely spaced with trunks as big around as train cars, lined
the upper rim. The understory was clogged with blowdowns,
ferns and large boulders. Plenty of cover for anyone who
wanted to hide. Nothing appeared to move on the ridge or in
the ravine, but his gut told him he was being watched, and the
feeling prickled the back of his neck.

He examined the footprint more carefully. Left foot. About a
size nine or ten, men's. He wondered what happened to the toe.
The track pointed downstream, so he followed it and soon
discovered two distinct sets of prints, the second slightly
smaller than the first, with all ten toes.

The plate of meat was growing heavy. And he was starving. It
was still raining hard -- a cold steady deluge that chilled
him to the bone. Better eat first and then follow the
strangers on a full stomach, he decided.

Turning back toward the shelter, he hiked up the embankment.

At the cave he found Scully asleep, gun cradled in her lap.
Dirt streaked her face and pine needles stuck to her hair. The
bruise around her eye reminded him of a Rorschach's inkblot
and he was sure he could see the shape of a grim-looking
mastodon in its blue-black silhouette.

"Scully?"

She stirred at the sound of his voice and her eyelids
fluttered open. Evidently her hearing was okay. His was slowly
returning, too, although noises, including his own voice,
still sounded tinny and a million miles away.

"Let me help." She reached for the platter and set it on her
lap.

Hands now free, he eased into the shallow cave, ass end first.
It was a cozy fit with the two of them wedged side-by-side.

"You're freezing." She wiped water from his dripping chin.

 "Wanna warm me?" he asked through chattering teeth. He leaned
more heavily into her and exaggerated his shivering. Water
rained from his hair onto her jacket.

"Mulder!" She gave him a gentle nudge with her elbow. "You're
soaking wet."

True. Water was pooling uncomfortably beneath him. Beneath
them both.

"Eat up. It's good," he said, hoping to divert her attention
from the growing wet spot.

"You started without me?"

"Just a sample."

She selected a chunk and bit into it.

"Mmm. Y'right. S'good."

"Watch out for bones." He helped himself to a large portion.

They ate for several minutes without speaking, eager to fill
their empty bellies. The mound dwindled faster than Mulder
would have guessed. Scully ate as ravenously as he did,
matching him piece for piece. Soon, more than half the meat
was gone, replaced by a stack of delicate rib bones.

She leaned back with a satisfied moan, and proceeded to lick
her fingers clean, one at a time. He watched her, hypnotized
by the way each dainty finger disappeared into the circle of
her lips. Jesus, she had no idea how sexy she looked. Hair
tousled, cheeks flushed, a scrap of raw snake stuck to her
chin. It was all he could do to stop himself from grabbing her
and licking that lucky piece of meat right off her--

Poised to swoop in like a Pleistocene buzzard on a fresh
mastodon carcass, he felt himself growing hard. He was hyper-
aware of every move she was making, every breath she was
breathing, the way her tongue was swirling seductively around
her left thumb. Imagining that pretty little tongue licking
snake slime from his own fingers...oh...God... When she slid
her middle finger deeply into her mouth, he almost groaned out
loud.

She stopped mid-lick to look over at him. As if reading his
mind, she sloooowly withdrew her finger from her mouth. It
made a delightful kissing noise when it popped free.

Was she coming on to him?

"Did you swallow a, uh, bone, Mulder?" she asked, her tone
sultry.

Okay, *that* was definitely a come on. She must have noticed
the boner in his pants was pressing uncomfortably against his
zipper. He wanted like hell to readjust himself. Fuck, he
wanted *her* to readjust him.

Mouth agape, he racked his brain for a smart-ass retort, but
came up blank. Scully had turned the tables on him, upsetting
the natural order of their relationship. *He* was supposed to
lob the innuendoes and then she was supposed to ignore them.
After five years, a precedent had been set, a pattern had been
established. This unexpected role reversal made him wonder if
there was something in the prehistoric air affecting her, or
him, or both of them.

Maybe it was the snake meat.

"I thought you might have a..." -- Scully selected a slender
snake rib from the pile of bones and held it up for him to see
-- "caught in your throat." She used the flat edge of the bone
to trace a tickling path over his bobbing Adam's apple.

She *was* flirting with him.

Wasn't she?

Or was he just imagining it?

Shit. He had no fucking idea.

Somewhere he'd read that the human male thinks about sex
approximately once every five minutes. At the time, he thought
the estimate sounded a bit conservative, but he'd been willing
to let it go. Hell, he was younger then, and averages were
just averages. Besides, someone had to be on the upper end of
the scale to balance out all those politically correct Men of
the '90s who never, ever had sexual fantasies about the women
they worked with.

Lying bastards.

Okay, big deal if he *occasionally* pictured Scully...uh...how
could he put this delicately? Fucking him blind? Was it really
so wrong?

Yes, yes, he understood the evils of sexual harassment, he
really did; he'd been to the seminars, had the sensitivity
training. But come on, his feelings for Scully went waaaay
beyond simple lust. For chrissake, he *loved* h--

Don't go there, Mulder, do *not* go there, he told himself.
She is *not* interested in you that way. Just concentrate on
something unsexy and get past this.

Flukeman.

Nope.

Leonard Betts' head.

Nope.

Peacock brothers.

Nope, nope and nope. This wasn't helping.

Okay, bring out the big guns: Bill Scully, Jr. defending his
sister's honor by pounding the crap out of her hound dog
partner.

Bingo. Worked like a charm every time.

Ardor diminishing, Mulder signaled to Scully that she had some
food on her chin. "You've...uh..."

"Oh, thanks." She scrubbed her face with a fingertip. "That
was delicious. I'm full."

"Mm. Me, too." He selected a bone from the pile and used it to
pick meat from between his teeth. "Just like Thanksgiving. All
we need now are a couple of La-Z-Boys and a football game."

She slid the platter of leftovers to the front of the shelter,
out of the way of their feet. "No TV, no remote, no cable --
you're going to slip into catatonic shock. You realize that,
don't you?"

"I miss my VCR already." Which reminded him, "I'm gonna have a
hell of an overdue triple-X bill when I get back."

"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?"

"No more than usual." Would Skinner notice if he added the
cost of the videos to their expense account? Yeah, he probably
would since he'd never signed the 302 in the first place.
Their trip to Hill Air Force Base was unauthorized. "Who's
your favorite redheaded porn star, Scully?"

She arched an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

"Sorry. My five minutes were up."

The other eyebrow rose, giving her a "what the hell does that
mean?" look.

"Never mind." He sighed, feeling full and content.

They listened to the rain for a minute or two without
speaking. Lightning flashed in the east and Mulder silently
counted the seconds between the flash and the rumble of
thunder -- a game he and Sam used to play. They would sit on
the porch at Quonochontaug, estimating the distance of an
approaching storm as thunderclouds, gray as the sea, plowed
northward along the coastline, bringing the smell of rainwater
and the promise of cooler air. Eight-one-thousand, nine-one-
thousand, ten-one-thousand...a soft rumble would ricochet
against the shore. Then when the storm finally closed in, Sam
snuggled beneath his arm. Goosebumps dotted her bare arms and
legs, and she shivered against him, insisting she was chilly,
not scared. But he wasn't fooled. She was just putting on a
show of bravery, the way she always did whenever she wanted to
prove she was as courageous as any boy.

A lot like Scully.

Instinctively he wrapped an arm around Scully. To his surprise
and delight, she didn't shrug him off, but settled comfortably
against him.

Another flash of lightning brightened the sky. One-one-
thousand, two-one--

"Mulder, how are we going to get home?"

He had no answer. For all he knew, they might be stuck here
permanently. "I don't know."

She turned to look up at him. "We can't give up. We have to
try *something.*"

"I haven't given up. I just don't have any useful suggestions
right now."

More lightning. The storm seemed to be circling around.

"We need to go back to the field where we first arrived," she
said, sounding determined.

"To do what?"

"Wait for the time portal to reopen."

"How long do we wait, Scully? There may not be a portal.
Ever." He knew she didn't want to hear this. "We have to
consider the possibility we may never get back."

"I won't accept that. I can't." She targeted him with angry
eyes. "Can you?"

"I don't know that we have a choice." He didn't want to fight
with her. They needed to work on this together. "I saw some
footprints," he said, trying to redirect the conversation.

"Human footprints?"

"Yes. Down by the stream. When I was cutting up the snake."

"Who do you think they belong to?" She looked hopeful.

Probably not a rescue party, he thought. "You took
anthropology in college. You tell me. What do you remember
about early human groups in North America?"

She frowned and thought for a minute. "The oldest reliably-
dated human remains were only about 11,500 radiocarbon years
old...that's 13,350 calendar years."

"What were the people like? Were they friendly?"

"No one knows for sure. The fossil records indicate they were
nomadic, living in familial groups of about fifty men, women
and children. They were artisans and skilled big-game hunters.
They followed migrating animals, like mastodons and mammoths,
camels, peccaries, stag-moose, musk-oxen...you can stop me at
any time, Mulder."

"Sounds like they had plenty to eat."

"Mm. For a while. A major megafaunal extinction occurred
around 11,400 B.P."

That sounded ominous. "Caused by what?"

"There are several theories. Some scientists believe early
humans hunted the animals to extinction. Others claim that a
catastrophic climactic event killed them. A third theory
posits that humans brought dogs, birds and other animals with
them to the New World, and these Old World animals carried
viruses that may have killed or weakened American populations,
which had no immunity to the new pathogens. Most likely, the
extinction was the result of a combination of stressors."

"Something extraterrestrial perhaps?"

A laugh chuffed from her nose. "You would ask that, wouldn't
you?"

He shrugged. "Asteroids are extraterrestrial."

"Is that what you were thinking?"

"Nah," he admitted. He suddenly felt very tired. Three days
and two nights without sleep were catching up with him. "I was
thinking more along the lines of visitors from outer space,
planetary invasion, the usual stuff. Although..." -- he
pointed to the rain and wind outside the shelter -- "maybe the
explanation is Biblical. This is looking a lot like Noah's
flood."

"Let's not go there, Mulder." She yawned and rested her head
against his shoulder. "We just ate the serpent in this
particular Garden of Eden. I hate to think what ramifications
there might be in that."

Her yawn sparked one of his own. "Dining on the symbolic cause
of The Fall. That can't be good." He leaned his head back
against the rocks and closed his eyes. "How are you feeling?"
he asked, not really expecting an honest answer.

"Better, thanks."

He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers,
surreptitiously checking for fever. Her skin felt cooler.
Maybe getting some food into her had helped.

She folded his hand beneath her own. "I'm fine, Mulder.
Really."

Wrapped by the warmth of her palm, he let his hand lie in her
lap.

The two of them were safe for now, their bellies full. It was
as good a time as any to catch forty winks.

*   *   *

"Let's shoot it," Bill, Jr. says, tossing the garter snake
onto the ground and aiming his BB gun.

Dana is tempted. She loves her new BB gun -- a birthday gift
from her brothers. But... "Dad said we're only supposed to
shoot cans, Bill."

"Well, Dad's not here, Miss Goody Two Shoes."

True, Ahab isn't with them.

And Dana hates to be called Miss Goody Two Shoes.

Bill, Jr. looms over her left shoulder and chants in her ear,
"Dana's a chicken...Dana's a chick--"

"I am not." She is a little afraid to disobey her father, but
she's not afraid to shoot the snake.

Charlie stands off to the side, a big grin on his freckled
face. He points his own BB gun at the snake. "Come on,
Dane...SHOOT!"

The boys fire one shot after another as the snake side-winds,
eluding the hailstorm of their BBs. Dana is certain she can
hit it. She's a good shot already, as good as her brothers.
Better, in fact. She hit five cans out of six! Charlie hit
only two. The moving snake is more of a challenge, but she
plans to show Bill she's not a chicken or a Miss Goody Two
Shoes. Closing one eye, she takes aim. Her heart pounds with
excitement. The snake slithers through the autumn leaves, and
Dana pulls the trigger. POW!

Delight skates up her arms when the gun pops and she sees the
snake knocked forward by the impact of her BB. A hit! Dead
center!

"You got it! You got it!" Charlie's face lights up with
admiration. Even Bill, Jr. looks impressed.

The three children move closer to inspect the injured animal.
Snapped practically in half, it continues to squirm, blood
oozing from its wound.

Dana kneels and picks it up. It's moving very slowly now. Soon
it just hangs limply in her hands. She gives it a little
shake. Then a gentle squeeze. A more frantic shake. Nothing
rouses it. Is it dead? She didn't mean for it to die.

"Starbuck, I warned you. You weren't supposed to shoot at
anything but cans." Ahab is sitting at the head of the dinner
table, where the family has gathered to eat their supper. His
expression is stern and he stares directly at his youngest
daughter. She knows he is ashamed of her.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to kill it." She looks down at her
dinner plate. Her tears are unstoppable. She wants to put life
back into the dead snake, but already her brothers have buried
it in the woods and now her father is mad and she can't stop
crying. She is to blame for killing the snake and it's going
to be dead forever--

"Who are the men who would create a life whose only hope was
to die?" Dana hears herself ask, but her plate has disappeared
and she is no longer at the dinner table. She is a grown
woman, standing in front of a child's coffin. The casket is
for Emily, her beloved, lost daughter.
 

Mulder stands beside her. He has brought flowers for her dead
child -- a pretty white bouquet, fragile and pale. "I don't
know," he answers. "But that you found her and you had a
chance to love her...then, maybe she was meant for that too."

A chance to give a mother's love to a child. Such a brief
blessing and all the more painful because of its brevity. Does
Mulder understand how much her heart is breaking over the loss
of Emily?

She turns away from the coffin to tell him she feels bereft,
and is surprised to find he is wearing a flower tucked behind
his ear. His suit and tie have vanished; he wears black jeans
and hiking boots, and a dead snake is looped around his neck,
dangling over his shoulders onto his bare chest.

"Touch it," he says. His voice floats past her ears like
cottonwood seed on a spring breeze. Puffy clouds slink across
a cornflower-blue sky high above his head, while white field
flowers nod at his feet. The air smells like fresh grass and
cherry blossoms.

And him. Masculine. Aroused.

She is suddenly aware that her clothes have disappeared and
she stands completely naked in front of him. Her partner...oh,
God. Embarrassment pounds in her veins, while at the same
time, desire tickles her inner thighs, her breastbone, the
tips of her breasts. She yearns to touch the snake, and
recognizes the urge is Freudian and vaguely inappropriate.
Even so...

She reaches for it. Tentatively strokes its head.

Its amber eyes open and she knows this is going too far. She
is crossing a line.

"Are you hungry, Scully?" Mulder asks. Concern has etched
shadows into his brow.

She realizes she is ravenous.

The snake stretches forward and prods her palm with its nose.
She can't eat it alive, can she?

Mulder whispers, "Taste it," and her doubts evaporate at the
sound of his voice. Grasping the snake behind its head, she
raises it to her lips, opens her mouth, accepts Mulder's gift.
The snake glides into her, over her tongue to the back of her
throat. It tastes earthy. The texture is surprisingly dry and
smooth.

It slips past her throat more easily than she would have
guessed, considering its size. It feels thick and warm in her
neck. She doesn't gag as it wriggles downward toward her
belly.

"You okay?" Mulder asks.

She nods. The serpent now rests in her stomach. She feels
deliciously sated and inexplicably happy. Mulder strokes her
face and smiles at her. He appears pleased. Satisfied that she
is satisfied.

"We did it, Scully." He points to her stomach.

Her naked belly has grown large. Her skin is stretched tightly
across the hard expanse of her abdomen. Mulder strokes the
pregnant mound. She feels something move inside her beneath
his palm. A baby's kick? Or the uncoiling of a snake?

"I'm scared, Mulder."

He nuzzles her neck. "Of what?"

Hot liquid floods her inner thighs and a painful cramp sizzles
in her womb. "Mulder?"

In the blink of an eye, she is lying on a hospital bed. The
room is familiar. Calumet Mercy Hospital. Chicago. Last week.
Only it had been Mulder strapped to the bed rails that time,
not her. The Pincus case. A monster that hid in the light.

"Mulder?"

He is dressed in scrubs and latex gloves. A surgical mask
covers the lower half of his face. He stands at the foot of
her bed. She feels him grip her ankles, part her legs.

"You have to push, Scully."

No, no, no. This can't be happening. She can't be pregnant.
She is unable to have children. Another stab of pain twists
her insides.

"Push, Scully! It's up to you."

She bears down, unable to stop herself. Oh, God, oh, God, the
pain is awful. She can feel herself stretched to the point of
tearing as something forces itself from between her legs. The
mound of her belly blocks her view. All she can see is the top
of Mulder's bowed head as he struggles to help her deliver her
child.

Suddenly the pain is gone. Mulder looks up, eyes wide with
tears. Not tears of joy. He is frightened. Oh, Jesus. Please,
no.

"I'm sorry." His mask puffs in and out against his face as he
pants for breath.

She tries to sit up, but the restraints hold her back. "What
is it, Mulder?"

His head wags with pity.

"What *is* it?"

"I warned you. You weren't supposed to shoot at anything but
cans." He stands straighter and places her baby onto her now-
flat belly, only it isn't a baby, just as she knew it wouldn't
be, knew it couldn't be. It's the dead, headless snake. Not
the little one she killed with her BB gun, but the big
Pleistocene one she shot in the cave.

"But I *had* to shoot it, Mulder. It was going to kill you. I
was trying to save your life!"

Mulder tugs the mask from his face, and she sees he is no
longer Mulder. He is Ahab.

"You made a bad choice, Starbuck."

He frowns, turns his back, and walks to the window. His
shoulders are broad and stiff. Full of authority and
expectation. He draws the curtains back, raises the blinds.
Outside is a valley with a silver river winding through it,
and on the banks of the river are herds of unfamiliar animals.
Saber-toothed cats, camels, giant mastodons.

"Dad?"

Ahab turns. And he has become Mulder once again.

"There's no going back, Scully."

"There *has* to be!" She struggles against her bonds. The
snake slips off her belly and rolls to the floor. "There has
to be...there has to be..."

*   *   *

"There has to--" Scully's eyes flew open and she fought to sit
upright. Panting, sweat slicking her back, her neck, the palms
of her hands, she tried to get her bearings. Restraints no
longer bound her wrists. The hospital bed was gone. She was in
the rock shelter. Mulder was dozing beside her.

A nightmare. She'd had a nightmare. Thank God. None of it was
real...except maybe the part about eating the snake. In a way.
A very Freudian way. She eyeballed the leftover meat, then
kicked it. Bones, bark and meat tumbled out of the cave.

Outside in the ravine the rain had stopped and the sun was
shining. Evergreen boughs, ferns, moss-covered stones --
everything glistened. Water continued to drip from the upper
canopy, slapping the lower branches with an erratic rat-a-tat.
Leaning forward to inspect the sky, she squinted against the
glare. The west was clear and pale blue, while the east
remained dark with clouds. Down in the gully, steam rose from
the forest floor as the sun heated the sodden ground.

Scully checked her watch. Four-thirty-four. She'd been asleep
for more than six hours, and felt better for it. Her headache
was gone and it seemed her fever had broken.

Mulder stirred beside her, but didn't awaken. This didn't
surprise her. He'd been without sleep for three days.

His clothes were still saturated and hers weren't much drier.
She felt sticky and unclean, and wished she could take a hot
shower. Glancing at Mulder's feet, she noticed his boots were
soaked. Better get them off him and set them out in the sun to
dry.

She managed to unlace and gently pull them from his feet
without waking him. Deciding to remove his sopping socks while
she was at it, she peeled them from his feet one at a time,
and found his toes were wrinkled from being wet so long. She
placed her palm along the sole of his left foot, testing the
temperature of his skin. He felt damp, but warm.

He sighed in his sleep when she patted his pruney toes.

"I'll be right back," she whispered, intending to climb down
to the stream to wash up after setting his footwear out to
dry. On an impulse, however, she paused before leaving to
stroke his unshaved cheek. His two-day stubble felt prickly
against her palm, and it made her realize that he would have a
full beard in just a matter of days.

She'd never seen him with a beard before.

She tried to picture him with his chin and cheeks buried
behind a thick layer of whiskers. Unexpectedly, the image
caused her to shiver with desire.

The Pleistocene air must be making her crazy. On the job, even
during off hours, she was usually able to ignore Mulder's
physical appeal. Usually. But here in this primeval place, she
found herself tantalized by his masculinity. His beard, his
height, his weight, the size of his hands, the thickness of
his fingers...and just look at those gorgeous feet! Damn it,
everything about him seemed to ooze sexuality. All of his
manly attributes were conspiring to make her feel,
well...horny, to put it bluntly. The depth of his voice, the
smell of his sweat, the swell of his Adam's apple, not to
mention the bulge--

What the hell was wrong with her?

Must be the snake meat.

Determined to put temptation behind her, she grabbed his socks
and shoes, and scooted out of the shelter.

The sunshine felt good on her face and the air smelled earthy
after the rain, like Shitake mushrooms and Christmas trees
rolled into one delicious natural perfume. She placed Mulder's
boots in a sunny spot and laid his socks out to dry on the
stone overhang. Then she carefully picked her way to the
bottom of the ravine, being watchful of slippery stones.

Down in the gully, she took a moment to inspect her
surroundings. Mulder had mentioned seeing footprints, but she
saw no sign of them. Even his tracks seemed to have been
washed away by the rain.

She glanced back at the cave where he was sleeping, hidden in
the shadows. His boots, perched on a mossy, sun-drenched
boulder, and his fluttering socks assured her she wasn't the
only living human being left on the entire planet. It was easy
to feel alone in this place. And powerless. The world had
become gargantuan in the blink of an eye, with its enormous
trees, oversized animals, and danger lurking around every
corner.

How long could they survive here?

She wandered upstream a short distance, searching for a spot
where the water ran deep enough to take a bath. Eventually she
came to a fallen log, which had dammed the stream, creating a
wide pool. Mist floated above its inky surface, giving the
scene a fairytale feel and reminding her of legendary places
like Camelot or Eden.

The ravine rose forty feet or more on either side of the
stream, banked at a steep angle, craggy with stone and
speckled with vegetation. Wild orchids, curly-leafed ferns,
emerald-green groundcovers dotted with diminutive, star-shaped
blossoms grew on and between the slate-gray ledges. Massive
tree roots ran vein-like down the near-vertical embankments,
questing for water in the lowlands. The trees themselves
guarded the upper banks like giant gnarled soldiers. Sunlight
dripped between their splayed fingers to puddle like molten
gold on the forest floor.

Woodland animals chittered angrily in the branches overhead,
making Scully feel she was an unwelcome trespasser. All
around, birds screeched -- high-pitched, frantic calls. A
desperate, anxious sound. They ballyhooed their territories,
extolled their genetic virtues, prepared to drive out unwanted
interlopers.

The birdcalls prickled her scalp as she stepped to the edge of
the pool. She quickly stripped off her coat and draped it over
a nearby boulder. Wanting to give herself a thorough washing,
including her hair, she removed her turtleneck and her black
camisole, and laid them both neatly on top of her coat. The
idea of putting the soiled clothes back on after her bath was
not a pleasant one, but she was thankful she'd worn several
layers. These clothes might have to last a long while, in all
sorts of weather.

She crouched to untie her boots. A wet knot in her laces
stalled her for a minute, but she eventually was able to pick
it loose. She stood again and toed off her boots and then
removed her socks. Lastly, she unbuckled her belt and slid her
pants from her legs, adding them to the pile with her gun,
which she balanced on the very top.

It felt strange to be standing in the forest wearing nothing
but bra and panties, especially since she'd decided to take
Mulder's advice literally, and put on something "black and
sexy" for their night of funky B&E. Her black silk underwear
was a brand new set. Not exactly utilitarian. Made for show
more than for wear and tear. What had she been thinking?

Kneeling at the edge of the small pool, she dipped her hand
into the water. It was startlingly cold -- as icy as if it had
just trickled off the Wisconsinan glacier.

Well, maybe it had, she realized.

She drank from her cupped hands. The water tasted sweet and
slightly metallic, and was ice cream-headache cold. A long-
legged beetle skated quickly out of her way when she began to
wash. Bill used to call insects like these Jesus Bugs, because
they were able to walk on water. One time when their mom
overheard him using the name she grounded him for a week,
which delighted Missy no end. She called him "Bill the
Blasphemer" for months afterward.

Wishing for a bar of soap, she scrubbed her face and neck with
her palms. Then she leaned forward, dipped the crown of her
head into the pool, and wetted her hair. Too late she realized
she hadn't thought to bring Mulder's comb with her.

Water streamed past her ears, preventing her from hearing the
approach of footsteps, until a twig snapped behind her.

"Mulder?"

Twisting to look over her shoulder, she discovered two men
standing about an arm's length away, blocking her access to
her gun. They had dun-colored eyes set in deeply tanned faces,
long corkscrewing beards and dark flyaway hair that fell well
below their shoulders. They wore animal skin garments wrapped
around their waists and fur capes hung across their muscular
shoulders. Each carried a spear and a hide sack. Bone jewelry
decorated their ears, necks and upper arms, which were
tattooed with dark, geometric patterns.

One man, the closest one, was taller than the other by several
inches. He was missing a toe on his left foot, and ropey scars
scissored up his left leg from his damaged foot to his upper
thigh. She guessed they were from animal bites, healed years
ago. His forearm was scarred, too. And his face. His left
cheek and chin were disfigured by two parallel slashes that
ran from his eye to his jaw. Considering the extent of his
injuries, it was a wonder he had survived.

Both men sniffed the air, their nostrils flaring as they
breathed in her scent. The scarred man stepped closer, near
enough to jab her bare upper arm with the point of his finger.
The poke was so hard it knocked her back on her haunches.

He growled something to the smaller man, who smiled. Their
proximity set her heart hammering and she chided herself for
putting herself at risk this way.

"Li-chi tse-gah!" shouted the scarred man, startling her.

"Li-chi," the smaller man repeated, more softly.

They moved in, crowding her. She wanted to rise up but thought
they might mistake any sudden move on her part as a threat, so
she hunkered low and hoped like hell they didn't want to harm
her.

The scarred man reached for her again, and it took all her
willpower not to duck out from under his hand. He patted her
hair, his touch tentative, curious. "Li-chi," he repeated, this
time in a whisper. Combing his fingers through her hair, he
suddenly laughed out loud, a harsh, gritty sound that crackled
from his throat. The other man laughed, too, then stuttered a
few words and pointed at her breasts.

Bending low for a closer look, the scarred man studied her
black bra. He stroked the fabric, running his index finger down
one strap. He hooked his finger behind the silky cup, tested
its smoothness by rubbing it between his finger and thumb.

"Ne-zhoniiii..."

She wasn't sure if that was a word or a sigh.

When he suddenly prodded her breast, she slapped his hand.

"Don't," she warned.

He drew back and began jabbering at her, his tone angry and
maybe a little frightened. The other man watched, poised to run
or stay, depending on what happened next.

She realized this was probably her best opportunity to go for
her weapon. Springing to her feet, she tried to lunge past the
scarred man. His arm shot out, blocking her. Lightning fast, he
grabbed her hair and yanked, bringing her up short and then
forcing her to her knees. Both men were yammering now.

Damn it, he was dragging her away from the pool.

She filled her lungs and screamed as loudly as she could.

"Mulllderrrr!"

*   *   *

"Scully?" Mulder blinked awake. Had she called out to him or
was it just a dream? She wasn't in the shelter, that much was
obvious. He sat up and scrubbed sleep from his eyes with the
heels of hands.

Where were his boots?

Bright sunshine jabbed his eyes when he slid from the cave to
locate Scully. He squinted against the glare and quickly found
his boots and socks, but Scully was nowhere to be seen.
Touching one of the socks, he discovered it was still sopping
wet, which meant she hadn't been gone long.

"Scully?" he shouted, only to hear his own voice echo back to
him. "Sculleeee!"

There was no answer. Evidently she hadn't just ducked behind a
bush to pee. His heart began to race as all manner of
irrational fears zigzagged through his mind.

"Scully! Scullllleeeee!"

He pulled on his boots, leaving the socks behind and not
bothering to tie his laces. Which direction had she gone? And
why the hell had she gone alone? He scrambled down the
embankment.

At the bottom her footprints led downstream and he followed
them at a jog. When he spotted two additional sets of prints
alongside hers -- one with a missing toe -- he broke into a
full run.

"Scully? Where are you? Sculleee!" He bulldozed through a patch
of waist-high ferns only to be stopped dead in his tracks by
the sight of her black, silk camisole lying on a boulder.

Blood roared in his ears and his legs felt like rubber as he
lurched toward it. Fuck, fuck. He grabbed it and hugged it to
his chest while he tried to make sense of what might have
happened here. Her tracks, now barefoot, and the strangers'
clearly showed signs of a struggle.

Find her...find her...find her...

The footprints led further downstream, where the sides of the
ravine were too steep to climb. That meant Scully and the two
men would have to stick close to the stream, at least until the
land flattened out. But there were so many places to hide.
Trees, shrubs, boulders, crevices.

Find her!

"Sculleee!" Please, please answer.

In the distance he heard her faint yell. "Mulder!"

He aimed for her voice and ran for all he was worth.

x-x-x-x-x-x

CHAPTER FOUR

The stream rushed through the ravine like blood through the veins of a
hunted beast. Mist shrouded the entire gorge and pointed firs lined the
upper embankment like rows of colossal shark's teeth. The scarred man
followed the flow of water, hauling Scully by the hair along a swampy,
overgrown path, while his companion trotted a few paces behind, lugging
the packs, spears, Scully's clothes and her gun. Briars clawed their
bare legs and bit into Scully's unprotected feet.

Kicking, cursing, throwing punches, she tried to free herself, but the
scarred man ignored her blows and maintained his tight grip on her
hair. She dug in her heels at every opportunity, flailed her fists,
scratched his arms and face, drawing blood...along with what was
undoubtedly a string of caveman curses.

She swore back at him. "Bastard! Let me go, you son of a bitch!"

They continued on that way for more than three quarters of a mile, with
Scully struggling and arguing. Physically she was no match for the
scarred man, but even so she was prepared to be as contrary as she
needed to be to slow his progress and give Mulder a chance to catch up
with them.

From somewhere far behind them he called her name again. She returned
his shout, screaming at the top of her lungs. Her cry earned her a
wallop; the scarred man struck her hard in the mouth, splitting her
lower lip. Blood spattered her chest, her arms, the ground, and she
hissed with pain.

Scarface drew back his fist to strike again, daring her to defy him.

Damn Neanderthal. She had no intention of giving in to his bullying.
Eight million years out of Africa, and she was being hauled off by the
hair? This fucking caveman was pissing her off!

Glowering at him, she shouted,  "MULLL--"

Knuckles plowed into her jaw, causing an explosion of pain that dropped
her to her knees. The grip on her hair was the only thing that kept her
from falling flat on the ground.

The scarred man must have sensed her next scream coming, because he
jerked her to her feet and pressed his huge palm tightly over her
bruised lips, locking her jaw with granite fingers so that she could
neither scream nor bite.

Son of a bitch must have done this before.

"Tehi," he growled into her ear, securing her with the crook of his
arm. He steered her roughly toward the stream. "Kut."

She reached up to dig at his eyes, but he dodged her scraping
nails and tightened his hold, towing her into the water, hand
still clamped over her mouth. Her bare feet slipped and
stumbled on the wet stones. Her toes went numb almost
instantly in the ice-cold water. Trying to pull away from his
one-armed bear hug, she repeatedly punched him -- in the
stomach, in the chest. He ignored her blows...until she aimed
for his groin. Catching hold of her swinging fist with his
free hand, he held it firmly in place.

"Nil-ta," he said, chuckling.

His companion laughed, too. "A-nah-ne-dzin."

They continued wading downstream. The water was picking up
speed, sucking at Scully's legs with every step. A waterfall
thrummed somewhere up ahead.

About a hundred yards short of the falls, the scarred man
dragged her to shore. His hand still held her jaw, and her
split lip throbbed beneath his palm. Blood filled her mouth.
Unable to spit it out, she swallowed it.

Scarface manhandled her to the edge of a cliff where the falls
tumbled eighty feet or more into a valley. At the bottom, the
land flattened out into a floodplain of dense forest and
interlocked ponds. The valley appeared trapped in the embrace
of two, jagged mountain ranges. Scully looked out across acres
of treetops. Pools of wind-scuffed water peeked through the
canopy like the glittering eyes of predatory animals, skulking
beneath the murky foliage.

Without warning, the scarred man seized her around the waist,
hoisted her off her feet, and slung her over one shoulder. Jaw
finally freed from his iron grip, blood poured from her mouth
and she began to shout at the top of her lungs.

"Muldermuldermul--"

A knife pricked the back of her bare thigh as her captor
pressed its sharp stone blade to her leg, silencing her once
and for all. He continued to hold the weapon against her as he
lugged her down the cliff, where twisted tree roots and slanted
stone outcroppings served as steps. Obviously born to this
terrain, both men climbed with the natural skill of mountain
goats. The added burden of her weight seemed to have little
effect on the scarred man; he wasn't even breathing hard when
he reached the bottom.

"Lit." He pivoted to look back up the hill, raising his nose in
the air and sniffing.

The smaller man turned and sniffed, too, then rattled off a
sentence or two that brought a frown to the other man's face.

Concern darkened their eyes and they slipped into the forest's
shadows, with Scully still draped over the bigger man's broad
shoulder.

*   *   *

"Sculleeee!"

Clutching her camisole tightly in his fist, Mulder careened
toward the sound of her voice. Her tracks disappeared into the
stream along with those of the men. Now he had to rely on his
FBI training, eyeballing both banks for any sign that she or
her kidnappers might have left the water for higher ground.

Why wasn't she wearing her boots? Or her camisole? The silky
undergarment slapped his thigh with every stride, conjuring up
a picture of her with no shirt, no shoes, and two Ice Age Don
Juannabees doing things he'd rather not think about.

If those bastards harmed her...

He pumped his legs faster, taking longer strides. Images of
past threats floated unbidden through his mind: Warren Dupre,
Donnie Pfaster, Gerry Schnauz. Scully's life was in danger.
Again. Adrenaline flooded his body, hammered his chest and
thundered in his ears, making him deaf to everything except the
memory of Scully's faint cry for help.

A dark, shiny blotch on the bank up ahead caught his eye. He
waded through briars, ignoring their pull and his god-awful
fear. In three strides, he reached the stain, and crouched over
it. It was blood. Lots of blood. On the stones, the leaves, the
mud. Was it Scully's?

Damn it. He would kill those sons of bitches.

The men's footprints were clearly visible in the mud. Scully's
prints, however, had vanished.

One of the men must be carrying her.

A spotty trail of fresh blood revealed the kidnappers had taken
a path down a near-vertical hillside, where the stream
thundered into a valley below. Stuffing Scully's camisole into
his jacket pocket, Mulder descended after them. The steep path
wound around boulders, over narrow, stone ledges, between trees
that clung precariously to the embankment, their twisted roots
providing meager footholds. His boots slipped in the mud,
skidded over loose gravel. Tangled vines snagged his toes. He
was constantly on the brink of losing his balance.

Halfway to the bottom, he caught a whiff of woodsmoke. His
first thought was that Scully's captors had decided to camp
somewhere down below and were preparing a cook fire, until he
realized the odor was coming from above, to the south.

It was possible there were other men in the area. And they
weren't apt to be any friendlier than the two he was following.

Mulder scanned the surrounding hillside for more blood. The
spots were smaller here and spaced farther apart: on a rock to
his left and several feet further down on the bark of a fallen
tree. He scrambled past it, his sense of urgency ballooning.

*   *   *

Jogging through the forest along a nearly invisible trail, the
scarred man kept his knife pressed to Scully's thigh. Its blade
scraped painfully with every jouncing step, reminding her to
keep silent and still. The second man followed only a pace or
two behind the first.

Scully tried to memorize the route they were taking, but the
trees all looked alike and her upside-down view was confusing.
Tree roots, ferns, her captors' running feet...she could see
little else. The men's bare feet were heavily calloused, their
legs tanned and crisscrossed with scrapes and fine scars. Quiet
as cats, they made almost no noise as they navigated through
the lowland forest.

Scully's jaw throbbed where she'd been struck, but her lip was
no longer bleeding. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. No
blood meant no trail for Mulder to follow.

Her hope of being released or rescued grew dimmer with each new
path her captors took. They veered off in yet another
direction, where the trees became sparser and the terrain more
flat and sandy. It was here that the men finally slowed to a
walk and exchanged a few words -- the first they'd uttered
since the waterfall. Their tones sounded almost casual now, as
if they were confident they had lost Mulder.

The smaller man bounded around his bigger companion like an
excited child, asking questions, laughing a lot. Too much,
evidently. Scarface soon became irritated and growled at the
smaller man, effectively shutting him up.

They stopped when they reached a clearing where the forest gave
way to a view of a small lake. A ratty tent-like structure sat
near the shore. It was made of animal hides that had been
loosely lashed together and draped over some sort of curving
supports, giving the shelter a dome-like shape.

Scully was unceremoniously dumped onto the pebbly beach, where
she fell hard on her backside, her dignity jarred along with
her tailbone. She landed between the tent and the remains of a
cooking fire. Traces of smoke still sifted up from the ashes.

Small Man tossed his gear, along with Scully's clothes and gun,
behind the tent. She desperately wanted to get to the gun, but
Scarface was already squatting in front of her, blocking her
way. The smaller man tended the fire.

"Li-chi tse-gah," the scarred man said, his eyes focused on her
hair. She recognized his words from before, back at the pool.

He reached for her and combed his thick fingers through her
hair. Then his attention dipped to the cross at her neck. With
the tip of one ragged finger, he traced its delicate chain down
to her cleavage.

"Don't touch me." She shoved his hand away.

He scowled. "Ha-gade!" He reached for the necklace again and,
this time, yanked it off her, breaking its chain and raising a
razor-thin welt on the back of her neck. "Ha-gade," he
repeated, shaking it in his fist.

"Give that back." She grabbed for it, but he quickly tucked it
away inside a small pouch he wore around his neck.

She loathed the way his glittering eyes studied her. Sitting
with her knees drawn up, she tried to hide as much of her body
from his curious stare as possible.

Nostrils flaring, he leaned forward and sniffed her: her neck,
her lips, her shoulder...her cleavage. Suddenly he grabbed her
knees, forcefully spread her legs apart, and inhaled deeply.

"Stop it!" She scrambled backward.

He laughed and grabbed hold of her ankles. She fought him as he
dragged her back toward him. The smaller man stopped tending
the fire to watch them.

"Nih-tsa-goh-al-neh." The scarred man licked his lips and then
opened the skins at his waist to reveal his swollen penis.

No, she wasn't going to let this happen. She kicked at him.
Grabbed a fistful of stones and hurled them at his face. The
stones bounced off his upraised arm.

He signaled to the smaller man, who rose from the fire to stand
behind her. Evidently they had no intention of letting her
escape. The scarred man took hold of her upper arms and drew
her to him. She pummeled him with her fists, boxed his head and
ears, but more quickly than she would have thought possible, he
flipped her over onto her hands and knees and then pushed his
own knees between her legs, spreading her thighs with his own.
He leaned over her back and pressed her head to the ground with
his left hand, while he steadied her hips with his right. She
struggled to escape, but he held her head firmly and pinned her
legs in place by pressing his knees onto her calves. Bent over,
she could see nothing but the muddy, calloused feet of the
smaller man, who silently waited his turn.

"Leave me alone! Get off me, you damn son of a bitch!"

The scarred man yanked her panties down, exposing her backside.
Anger and embarrassment raged through her. No, no, no!
*Please*, no. She held her breath against the stink of her
assailant's sweat. Felt the tickle of his beard on her
shoulders as he draped himself over her. His engorged penis
prodded the backs of her legs.

"NOOOOOO!"

*   *   *

 "Get the hell away from her!" Mulder bellowed from the edge of
the woods. Seeing Scully dressed in nothing but her panties and
bra and mounted from behind by a hulking Neanderthal filled him
with unimaginable rage. It didn't occur to him to pull his gun;
the only thing he could think to do was wring the fucker's neck
with his bare hands.

He launched himself at Scully's assailant, screaming at the top
of his lungs as he crossed the clearing. The startled caveman
had no time to react before Mulder plowed into him full force,
shoulder to ribs, toppling him from Scully's back. He grunted
from the impact and they both rolled toward the blazing
campfire.

Mulder scrambled to his feet. The Neanderthal did the same,
rising like a mountain in front of him.

The brute was thickset, as muscular as Conan the Barbarian, his
limbs, chest and face streaked with deep battle scars. He
balled his fists, puffed his chest, and locked eyes with
Mulder.

Mulder straightened to his full height, a satisfying inch or
two taller than his brawny opponent.

"You okay, Scully?" he called, not taking his eyes off Conan.

When she didn't immediately answer, he chanced a quick glance
over his shoulder and discovered the smaller man had her in a
hammerlock. She was struggling to free herself, clawing at his
arms and elbowing his ribs.

"Scull--"

Granite knuckles plowed into Mulder's jaw, rocking him back on
his heels. He regained his balance and struck back. Missed.
Threw a second punch and, this time, connected. Jesus, it felt
like he'd hit stone.

Conan appeared unfazed by the blow. He sneered and raised his
fists...fists that had held Scully hostage only moments ago,
fists that had pushed her head to the ground --

Mulder missiled at him, skull to gut. A satisfying yowl
exploded from Conan's lungs as he was knocked backward. Mulder
pressed his advantage. He threw a haymaker that failed to
connect when the other man ducked. Conan responded with a punch
of his own. It hit Mulder with astonishing force and sent him
tumbling. He landed on the ground with a spine-jarring jolt.

Conan wasted no time coming after him. He leapt on top of him,
wrapped thick fingers around his throat and pressed forceful
thumbs into his larynx. Mulder thrashed and bucked as the
pressure on his throat intensified. His lungs hitched for
oxygen. Desperate, he clapped the heels of his hands against
Conan's ears. The impact knocked the man back.

Gulping for air, Mulder scrambled to his feet. "Scully?" he
gasped, not daring to take his eyes off the scarred bastard
long enough to look for her. He could hear the scuffle of feet
several yards behind him, the dull thud of a punch, a low,
masculine grunt.