The Eye of Chronos

by Ceredwyn

 
 Part 1 - Tempis sure fugits when you're having fun...

"I'm going back to the motel, Mulder," Scully announced to her bleary-eyed partner. His chin had rested on the rim of his glass for so long that both were scarred by the contact. At first she thought he hadn't heard her at all, but his mouth formed a familiar pout and she knew she had been heard and not ignored even if she hadn't been formally acknowledged. "Come on. I'll drive."

"I hate this," he lamented to the empty glass. It was the sixth empty glass, and, like the others, it had once held a Scotch and soda. The bar around them had emptied over the past three hours and there was no one other than the nameless bartender he could be speaking to. Scully sighed and put an arm around his shoulder. Mulder wasn't knee-walking, ditch-crawling drunk, but he had crossed over into introspective obscurity sometime in the last half hour.

"What do you hate, Mulder?" It was almost a rhetorical question.

"It's over," he sighed. "We solved the case. Most of the bad guys are in jail or dead. There wasn't any X-file; just some poor ignorant assholes who couldn't separate fantasy from reality. And tomorrow there will be another poor ignorant asshole to deal with. And we'll do our heroic duty... And the truth will still be out there... and we won't be one inch closer to it than we are right now." He straightened up, the glass ring on his chin red as a wound, but no redder than his eyes. For a moment he looked as though he might throw the glass. But that wasn't Mulder's style. And if Mulder was nothing else, he was consistent in his inconsistencies. He stood up and swayed against her. He smiled a little tight-lipped, ironic, Mulder smile and said, "I'm drunk, Scully."

She laughed ruefully and guided him out of the bar. "You have a marvelous grasp of the obvious, Mulder." Cold, clear December midnight air pulled them outside to where the rental car was parked. She trundled her partner into the passenger's seat and buckled him in, wondering if there was any way she was going to find her way back to the motel. Mulder had been driving and she hadn't paid much attention. Restview... Restway... Rest something... Oh, well, it wasn't more than half a mile from the interstate exit on Route... Oh, hell.

"Mulder?" she asked tentatively. His head rolled towards her, but instead of answering, he gave a soft snore.

The driver's seat was set for Mulder's long legs and was stuck in position. Wonderful, just wonderful. Scully, how do you get yourself into these situations? She shrugged out of her coat and rolled it up to sit against. At least that way her toes reached the pedals. Naturally, the defroster fan breathed with all the force of an asthmatic wheezing through a straw. She waited until a Frisbee-sized spot had cleared and pulled away from the curb.

She didn't remember coming through such a rough area of the city, but maybe it had looked better in twilight. Of course, Mulder had been driving and she'd been trying to pull him out of his case-gone-to-hell funk, but even so, if this neighborhood had been in DC she wouldn't have ridden through it in an armored truck. She swiped at the windshield with her gloves, not entirely certain she wanted to see what a larger viewing area might reveal, and was so intent on scraping frost that she barely had time to see the man standing before her in the street before she hit him.

********

"Iolaus! Behind you!" Hercules shouted, tossing the smoldering torch to his friend just in time for the smaller man to swing it into the faces of the three thugs who were closing in on him. One of them tripped and went over backwards, but the other two were only momentarily deterred. Iolaus used that moment to his advantage and pivoted into a donkey kick, downing them both. He snatched up the sword he'd dropped and swung into position, back-to-back with Hercules. After twenty-five years together they worked like two halves of a whole. But the magician's bodyguards were no amateurs and for every one that fell, two more seemed to appear. Kritias watched from the dais, curiously unperturbed by the fact that thirty of his best warriors were failing to deal with two men. He idly polished the huge red gemstone he held, checking his reflection occasionally in its glittering facets. A dazed soldier reeled against his arm, nearly knocking the gem from his hand.

"Clumsy idiot!" Kritias sneered. "Begone." He fastened his intense gaze on the red jewel and smiled grimly as a fiery glow surrounded it, gathered into a concentrated ray and shot out towards the fallen man. The air around him crackled and burst into flames, and the thug vanished with a loud snap and a whiff of ozone.

Kritias turned his attention back to Hercules. It was time to end this little diversion. He focused on the stone again and its brilliant aura swelled. The beam reached out for Hercules, but as it did, the big man dove into a rolling somersault, bowling over three enemies, and the shaft of light torched a huge tapestry. It crumbled to glowing ashes, revealing a shimmering red hole in the wall.

Iolaus slid to a stop in front of the glimmering void. "Whoa!" he exclaimed, eyes wide. "Watch out, He--" A booted foot caught him in the jaw and sent him reeling towards the wall. His roaring adversary, suddenly overbalanced, fell forward and vanished into the red. Hercules looked up just in time to see his best friend follow the first man into oblivion.

"Kritias!" he roared, grabbing a sword and charging the magician. For the first time that afternoon, the wonder-worker felt genuinely threatened. "What have you done with him?"

The fat magician cowered before him. "I... I don't know. I've never used the stone in that way before."

"Well you'd better pray that Iolaus is safe, Kritias. If he isn't, Tartarus could prove to be a big relief." He grabbed the gem from the unprotesting sorcerer. "Now what's behind that wall?"

"N-nothing. The castle backs up into the mountainside. There's nothing but solid rock."

"You'd better hope you're wrong," Hercules snarled, lifting the magician by his collar and striding purposefully towards the red opening in the wall.

"No! Stop!" Kritias cried. "You don't know what's out there!" His scream was lost as Hercules carried him into the red void.

********

Iolaus hit the ground hard and rolled to his feet. Something was definitely wrong, here. The man who'd kicked him was standing a few feet away, staring around in shock, his mouth hanging open. And Kritias's throne room was gone, along with everyone else who'd been in it.

They stood in a dark alleyway between impossibly tall, filthy brick buildings. The sky above was night dark, but a globe of orange-white light glowed from the top of a pole at the end of the alley.

"What in the name of Tartarus happened?" Kritias's man asked in a tremulous voice.

"I don't know, " Iolaus said, trying to orient himself to his strange surroundings, "But I don't think I like it."

The place stank horribly. Rotting garbage tumbled out of a huge metal tub nearby, spilling on to the cinder-covered pavement. But other hideous, totally unfamiliar smells combined to make the air nearly unbreathable. An overheated forge combined with sulphur and rancid oil was the closest he could come. And it was cold, colder than the worst winter. Clumps of grey snow and patches of ice confirmed that wherever this place was, it definitely wasn't anywhere near Kritias' castle on a fine spring day.

A hollow growling came from the mouth of the alley and Iolaus instinctively tightened his grip on his sword. To his astonishment, Kritias' guard moved towards the sound. "Stay back," Iolaus warned. "You don't know what kind of monster's out there." But the man seemed to have been struck deaf and kept going.

"Great," Iolaus grumbled, rolling his eyes. The fellow might have been trying to kill him a moment ago, but now he was the only familiar thing in town and Iolaus wasn't about to lose sight of him. "Wait! " he cried as the man moved farther away. But instead of stopping, the guard glanced back over his shoulder and took off at a run, leaving the safe confines of the alley and dashing out into the middle of the icy, deserted street. Iolaus followed, sticking close to the walls. Zeus only knew what horrible creature was prowling out there. He saw the guard freeze in horror, staring stupidly at something out of Iolaus's sight. The man's face was suddenly illuminated with an unearthly white glow and he stood as though transfixed by the approaching light, eyes bulging with terror and mouth open in a soundless cry.

Before Iolaus could reach the mouth of the alley, the menacing rumble grew louder and Kritias' man was knocked aside by a charging green monster. He hit the pavement of the street with a muffled crunch and lay still. The creature slid a short distance and stopped, still snarling. Iolaus knelt beside the fallen guard, but saw immediately that he was beyond help, his neck twisted at a sickening angle, staring eyes still wide with terror.

Iolaus gripped his sword in fighting position and stepped into the middle of the street. As if in answer to his challenge, the beast opened horrible red eyes -- gods, the thing was sighted front and back! - and began its slow, deadly advance.

********

"Oh my God, Mulder! Oh my God! I hit him!"

Mulder was suddenly wide awake. "You what?" Even in the faint glow of the dash lights he could see that his partner was ghostly pale and shaking.

"I hit a man. He was just... there all of a sudden. I... I think he had a sword."

"Damn. I knew I was drunk, but..."

"Mulder, I am not drunk." She slammed the car into reverse and began backing the half-block it had taken her to stop. The rear defrost had cleared the glass and she could see the crumpled body in the snow-filled gutter -- and someone kneeling over it. As the car began to move, the second figure stood to be captured by the back-up lights. Maybe she was drunk after all, because she couldn't be seeing what she thought she saw: a man only half-dressed against the cold who looked for all the world like he was about to defend himself against the car with -- no, Mulder was right; it couldn't be a sword. She was definitely seeing things.

But Mulder was staring out the back window, too, with an expression caught uncomfortably between amusement and disbelief. "I take it back, Scully. You're not drunk. He is."

Scully slammed on the brakes; the guy was obviously not backing off. The tires hit an icy patch of pavement and the car slid into a donut, knocking the sword-wielding lunatic off his feet before he could leap out of the way.

Half a second too late, Iolaus realized the monstrosity charging him was no living creature, but some manner of infernal mechanical device, an armored carriage without horses. He dodged off to the left, but even as he did so the thing wheeled about, slammed into his right hip, and suddenly he was lying on his back gasping for breath and trying to gather his scattered wits. Whatever the thing was, it packed a mean wallop. He rolled unsteadily up on one elbow and saw that he was a good thirty feet from the whatever-it-was that had hit him. The thing was still, lamps glowing at either end, a foul vapor pouring from its backside. Then doors opened on either side and two people climbed out. The one closest to him was a beautiful red-haired woman in clothes like none he'd ever seen before. She was white-faced, wide-eyed and obviously distressed.

"Call 911, Mulder!" he heard her cry.

Must've hit my head - that didn't make any sense at all, he told himself, then laughed out loud at the ridiculous thought. Get a brain, Iolaus. You're wanting this to make sense?

The other person - Mulder? Strange name - a tall, slender, dark-haired fellow, was leaning over Kritias' fallen guard. "This one's dead, Scully. Broken neck." Now that made sense. But "Scully"? Poor choice of names for a pretty woman.

Iolaus sat up and reached for his sword.

"Don't touch it!" cried the woman, sounding like she meant business. "FBI!" Nonsense again. "Put your hands on your head and don't move."

"I have to move to put my hands on my head," he reasoned.

"Just do it," she snapped. Not much of a sense of humor, even if she was beautiful. She moved closer and he saw she was holding a dark metal cylinder in both hands, extending it towards him.

Iolaus rolled his eyes heavenward. This was getting ridiculous. "I don't think so," he reasoned, getting to his feet and brushing dirt and snow from his pants and reaching again for his sword. "Look, I don't know what's going on here. I don't know what an efbeyi is..." He looked around in absolute confusion. "And I don't have the slightest clue where I am."

Scully kept a professional scowl on her face and her gun pointed steadily at the strange blond man, but she noticed that his bewilderment and frustration seemed genuine. Appearances could be deceiving, but he didn't look like a common criminal. In fact, now that she could get a good look at him, there was nothing common about him at all. He was pleasant enough looking, but his face had the weathered look of someone who'd spent his life outdoors. His blond hair was wild and wavy and had never been within a mile of a stylist. And those clothes! She was half frozen in a wool suit and this guy was wearing a leather patchwork vest that left his arms and chest bare, worn leather pants and... Jesus, Mary and Joseph!... was that a codpiece?

Actors! That's it; they were actors in some... Scully looked around at the deserted street. The only buildings were decrepit, abandoned warehouses and factories. Not exactly the theatre district, girlfriend. And no, not a gay leather bar area, either. And that sword he was so interested in retrieving... there were bloodstains on the blade. Fresh bloodstains.

"Hey, Scully!" Mulder called. "I think you'd better take a look at this - guy's got cuts all over him."

Scully's eyes narrowed. "Cuts? Like from a sword?"

"I don't know about that, but I don't think he nicked himself shaving."

Scully snapped back into arrest mode. "Hold it right there. If you so much as twitch, I'll shoot."

The man looked at her as though she was shaking a finger at him instead of pointing a semi-automatic at his mid-section. "With what?" he asked incredulously. "You have to have a bow to shoot someone. I don't think that thing qualifies." He started to inch backwards.

Scully rolled her eyes in utter exasperation. The guy was cute, but he was either trying to throw her off balance or he was a beer or two short of a six-pack. Oh well, there weren't any neighbors to wake up. She shot at the ground between the blond man and that damned sword.

Iolaus froze at the incredible noise, eyes wide. Whatever the thing "shot", it had kicked up a handful of snow and sparked off the pavement, gouging a hole in the concrete and sending the sword spinning away from him. The red-headed woman was little, and not particularly dangerous looking, but her weapon had obviously come from the gods. Iolaus, who had learned long ago that messing with the gods was best left to others, saw that the Scully woman was pointing her mysterious weapon at him again.

He raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender as she began to walk towards him. With a nervous little laugh, he pointed out that, "Look! I mean... See... I'm not moving. We're standing right here waiting for you to tell us what to do. Really."

Nothing could have sobered Fox Mulder up any faster than the sound of his partner's gun. This night wasn't going to look good in any kind of report. First Scully had run over this poor sucker and now she was going to shoot the other one. He felt like throwing up, but instead, he called, "What the hell are you doing, Scully?"

"He was trying to get away."

"Oh, like I'd have a clue where to go if I could get away."

Mulder decided it was time to intervene. "Scully, there's something really strange going on here."

His partner and the blond stranger both looked at him in wonder.

"No shit, Mulder?"

"Is he always this clever?" asked the blond man.

Mulder sighed. "Look at his clothes."

"Hey, what's wrong with my clothes?"

Ignoring a wonderful opportunity to display his fashion savvy, Mulder contented himself with saying, "I'd be willing to bet you didn't buy them at K-Mart."

"What's K-Mart?"

"Where are you from, anyway?" Scully asked.

"Thebes."

"As in Georgia?"

"As in Boeotia."

"Where?" the agents asked as one.

"Um... Greece..?"

A bit of Oxford floated to the surface of Mulder's brain. He'd done some studies in the classics, but that had been the season of Phoebe Green, too. He remembered Conan Doyle's tomb, but Boeotia... "Wait a minute! Boeotia. That was a province in ancient Greece. Like, way BC"

Iolaus wished he'd stayed in bed rather than accompanied Hercules to Kritias' castle. This was getting out of hand in a hurry. Not only were these strangers as odd as their bizarre world, they acted like he was the crazy one. He cast a furtive glance at his sword. He'd forged that sword himself and carried it for a dozen years and he was going to hate leaving it behind. But if the Scully woman's weapon could put a hole in the stone street, it could put a hole in him, and he was already feeling more than adequately ventilated. In fact, he felt like he was flirting with pneumonia. It was definitely time to go home. Maybe if he could divert them, get back into the alley, he could find the strange red door that had brought him to this insane place.

But before he could move, the air around them turned dense and warm, swirling with static intensity. He felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck and arms rise in warning. Scully and Mulder exchanged puzzled glances as their hair stood out and danced in an unseen current. Iolaus felt his own scalp crawl, felt the tense tingle...

"What's happening?" he asked, fighting the urge to run.

"I have no idea," Mulder said, looking around in amazement to where the dead guard lay. The body was glowing, surrounded by a thick red aura that danced like flames. The glow intensified and began to swirl.

A sudden snap of red lightning erupted from the body and it disappeared in a blinding red explosion that cleared the air. Where it had lain was a rough, melted relief in the ice.

Iolaus recovered first. He'd been dealing with the surreal distortion of his world longer than the others. His ears were ringing from the static tension, and just for a moment, he would have sworn he heard faint laughter. He grabbed his sword and backed away from Mulder and Scully.

"I don't suppose you have any idea what happened to your friend," Mulder asked rhetorically.

"Not a clue," Iolaus parried. "And he wasn't my friend. I didn't even know his name. He was just one of Kritias' soldiers. Fifteen minutes ago he was trying to kill me."

Mulder and Scully exchanged glances. If they hadn't seen the dead man disappear, they'd have been certain the blond man was an escaped lunatic. But the corpse had disappeared. Mulder ran a hand through his hair and shook his head to chase off the last of the Scotch and soda bleariness.

"Why don't you tell us exactly what just happened here," he said.

Iolaus snorted off an incredulous laugh. "You've got to be kidding! I don't know what happened. One minute we were in Arcadia, at the castle, fighting to get through Kritias' guards. Then the wall disappeared and we were here..."

Scully was still eyeing him suspiciously. "If you're from ancient Greece, how come you're speaking American English?"

"Huh?" Iolaus looked at her quizzically. "What's American? What's English? I'm speaking the same language you are. Greek."

"Oh, boy," groaned Mulder. "Remind me never to get drunk in..." The faint sound of a siren interrupted him.

"Oh, my God, Mulder. The police. You called 911."

"You did ask me to, if you'll remember."

"Great. But if we try to explain this... and him, we'll all end up in jail. We have to get out of here."

Iolaus brightened considerably. "Great idea. You get back in that... whatever-it-is and I'll try to find the way back where I belong."

"Forget it!" Scully snapped. "You're coming with us. I'm going to find out what's going on here, but we've got to leave for now!"

The wail of the siren was getting nearer. Iolaus winced at the sound and decided that going with the crazies was his best option at the moment. They dashed for the car. Scully hit the driver's seat and Mulder opened the back door and shoved Iolaus into the back seat.

"Hey, how come I have to ride in back?" Iolaus protested as Scully floored the accelerator and they sped off into the night.

Part II - When in Athens...

Hercules let go of the magician's collar and the fat man fell to his knees in the snow, crying, "You don't know what you've done!"

The demi-god shook his head in dismay. "You're right. Why don't you tell me." He looked around as Kritias rose and brushed dirty snow from his brocade robe. Obviously the stone had created a doorway to somewhere other than the rocks behind the castle.

Kritias swung around, examining his surroundings. "The gem... It's a transporting... amulet. It's moved us to another time."

"Like the Chronos Stone?"

"Similar. But this artifact is far more powerful. It forms bridges to the future as well as the past."

Hercules eyed the alley they'd landed in, the garbage, the filthy soot-coated brick walls. "So much for progress," he said.

"Oh, there's been progress, all right. There are wonders here you could never have dreamed of. Men from this time have walked on the moon and visited the bottom of the deepest ocean..."

Hercules' eyes narrowed. "I thought you'd never used the stone this way before."

Kritias shrugged. "It seemed like the best thing to say at the moment."

A shrill, keening wail came from the mouth of the alley. Red and blue swirling lights reflected off the brick walls. A black and white vehicle of a sort Hercules had never seen before rolled to a stop not twenty yards from where they stood.

Kritias shrank back into the shadows. Hercules realized that a small section of the brick wall before him was oddly less substantial looking than the rest of the structure, and the dirty red of its bricks was brighter and slightly shimmering. The portal that led back home had not closed, and Kritias was moving towards it.

Hercules grabbed the magician by the nape of the neck, holding him helpless in his iron grip. "You're not going anywhere," he threatened. "Not until we find Iolaus."

"Forget your friend, Hercules. If he isn't dead already, he will be very shortly. He can't possibly survive in this era. He has no defenses against our diseases. The water and food are full of chemicals that will be toxic to him. Even the air will eventually poison him. You're the son of a god. That might save you for awhile. Give me the gem and we can return to my castle." "I don't think so, Kritias," Hercules growled. "You've been here before, and you've managed to survive... And you've been known to stretch the truth."

"Police! Hold it right there!" a harsh voice from the street called. Brilliant white light flooded the alley, blinding them. "Drop your weapons and come forward with your hands up."

Hercules raised his hands obediently. Kritias lunged for the stone, knocking it against the opposite wall. The magician cast a withering glance at Hercules and raised his own hands in surrender.

Two policemen, one of them almost as large as Hercules, moved cautiously towards them, weapons drawn.

"What's going on here?" asked the smaller man. "Didn't anybody tell you guys Halloween's over?"

"We got a call about a hit and run fatality," said the other. "I suppose neither of you... gentlemen would know anything about that."

"Of course not, Officer," Kritias answered with an oily smile. "My friend and I were on our way home from a masquerade party. We heard something moving back here and came to investigate. That was, oh my, it must have been half an hour ago. And I don't believe there's been any traffic the whole time."

The large policeman frowned. "Listen here, young lovers, this alley ain't on the way nowhere except big trouble. We'll call you a cab."

"Oh, thanks," Hercules assured him, "but we're just fine." Seeing the contempt in the policemen's eyes, he could have strangled Kritias.

"I said we'll call you a cab," the man insisted.

********

Miles away, Iolaus was having a far better time than his friend. What a wonderfully exotic place he'd found! He'd never imagined such an amazing city, with its bizarre vehicles, brightly lit streets, and more buildings than he'd seen in his whole life, some of them so fantastically formed that he wondered how they could have been built by mortal men. The strange vehicle was far faster and more comfortable than any carriage, and after the first few seconds, it was blessedly warm. And the roads! These people could have taught the Romans a few things about how to build a road... he was certain he'd seen raised highways three or four layers high, gracefully arched and intertwined... If it hadn't been for his traveling companions he would have supposed he'd finally found the back door to Mt. Olympus. But Mulder and the Scully were definitely not gods, though they squabbled enough to be Olympians. He found himself thinking fondly of his friend Mariah; she'd nearly driven him crazy with her insistence on other worlds and other civilizations. He'd have to tell her someday that she'd been right - if he ever saw her again.

But a few moments later the ride started to go sour. All that scenery flying by the window was moving a little too quickly for his eyes to keep up. It was dizzying. It was.... Yes, he was feeling queasy all of a sudden, and watching the city fly past the windows in a dark, streaked mural wasn't doing his stomach any good at all. This wasn't a boat, and he wasn't on water, but he was definitely getting seasick. He shut his eyes and lay back against the seat with an involuntary moan.

Scully glanced at him in the rearview mirror. He was several shades paler than he had been a moment ago. In fact, he looked just like Mulder when he...

"Don't you dare throw up in this car!" she demanded without turning around. Iolaus realized she'd seen him and opened his eyes. It was a big mistake.

"Then you'd better stop," he said between clenched teeth, "'Cause I'm gonna throw up somewhere..."

Tires shrieked as Scully slammed on the brakes and swerved onto the shoulder. Iolaus clambered out onto the pavement and leaned over the guard rail, retching pitifully.

Mulder's complexion greened sympathetically as the stale Scotch in his stomach finally won. "I know exactly how you feel, buddy," he mumbled, joining the blond man at the side of the road.

Scully's grip on the steering wheel tightened until she felt like her knuckles would split. "God?" she whispered. "If I leave them both here, will you let me find my way back the motel and get a good night's sleep? " It had been a long day even before life had taken a sharp left turn. "I really don't deserve this," she told the steering wheel.

She looked wearily out at her partner and the... whatever he was... stranger, lunatic, or time-traveler. No, surely not time traveler. Mulder's aliens were easier to believe in than the idea that the blond man had come from ancient Greece. On the other hand, he obviously wasn't from Poughkeepsie, either. Not with those weird leather clothes. Nice butt, though, she admitted, sneaking another look. Maybe the leather wasn't such a bad idea after all...

"Snap out of it, Scully!" she told herself irritably.

Mulder stood unsteadily and popped a breath mint in his mouth. "Are you all right?" he asked Iolaus, offering a hand up.

The blond man's face was marginally less green about the edges. "I can't believe I got seasick in that thing," he groaned as Mulder hauled him to his feet.

Mulder fumbled in his coat pocket and came up with a pill. "Here... It's Dramamine. It'll help. It's car sick, by the way. Same principle, no water. You'd better have one of these, too. He handed Iolaus a breath mint. "

Iolaus looked at the pill and the mint, then back at Mulder. "Um, there aren't any strange rules about eating and drinking here, are there? Like if I eat these I have to stay here forever? " He stopped when he noticed that Mulder was staring at him like he was a slightly backwards child. "Hey, I ve been to Hades, and if you eat anything there, you don't get out."

Mulder shrugged. "Couldn't say. But I remember the myth... Nah, I think you're safe. "

The Dramamine was bitter and he swallowed it quickly. But the chalky lozenge was pleasantly minty. "Hey, thanks, that's a lot better. "

Mulder found himself smiling back at the half-dressed lunatic. Scully was less amused.

"Get... in... the... car," she said slowly and evenly, so that even Mulder could understand. "Both of you. Now. Or I am leaving without you. "

Iolaus and Mulder exchanged weary glances. She didn't sound like she was joking. When they were back in the car, Scully turned around in her seat to face Iolaus. "Don't do that again. I rented this car with my Visa card, and I am not paying any more damages than I have to. So just sit back and stay out of trouble. Don't move. Don't talk. " She settled back into her seat . "In fact, I don t want either of you say anything until we get back to the motel. "

"You're sure you can find the way by yourself..." Mulder said innocently.

"What's a motel?" Iolaus asked.

Scully took a deep breath and peeled rubber getting back on the highway.

********

Hercules sat stiffly in the cramped back seat of what the policeman had called a City Cab. Kritias had displayed an unnerving familiarity with this peculiar mode of travel and had answered the driver's, "Where to, Buddy?" without hesitation.

7684 Barkley had obviously meant something to the driver, but Kritias hadn't found it necessary to enlighten his fellow traveler. Hercules tried to follow the cab's progress through darkened, twisting streets lined with strange buildings, but soon realized he'd never find his way back to the alley by himself. The "cab" was fast, but it smelled of stale smoke and the driver's impressive body odor, and he was increasingly uncomfortable with the knowing smirk on Kritias' face. The magician sat back, enjoying the ride, seeming to find nothing unusual in these bizarre surroundings.

They drove through neighborhoods so different from one another that they might have been in separate countries, some where buildings crowded the street and bore colorful, brightly lit signs, and others where darkened structures sat back from the road, surrounded by large lots with dead grass peeking between patches of snow. The cab finally stopped in front of a columned edifice as large as an Athenian temple in an area where other such palaces stood amidst grounds full of leafless trees, paths, benches and statues. Kritias handed the driver a few scraps of green paper and the man grinned widely. Either the driver was very easily pleased or there was something important written on the papers, because he discharged his passengers without payment. When the cab was gone, Kritias bowed mockingly low and waved Hercules up the stairs.

"Welcome to my world, Hercules," he said with a knowing smile.

********

The Rest-a-While was an old-fashioned, U-shaped motor court, a holdover from the fifties, when the frontage road had been an important highway. It was just the kind of almost comfortably shabby establishment Mulder favored, even when there might be a "whirlpool-in-every-room" Hilton not three blocks away. Though she was partial to more respectable accommodations, by the time she parked the rented Taurus in front of her room, the place looked like a palace to Scully. She was actually glad that it was nearly two am; there was no reason to call Skinner at this hour. There were some things that she didn't feel like explaining. Or trying to explain. Or trying not to explain.

"We stopped," the thing she couldn't explain said helpfully from the back seat.

"Thank you," she said dryly. "This is where we get out."

"We're staying here? Cool... I've never seen an inn this fancy, let alone stayed in one."

Mulder smiled radiantly. "See, Scully. I told you I could pick 'em."

"Yeah," she muttered. "He'd probably faint if we pulled up to a Ramada. But at least we don't have to sneak him in here."

The cold wind bit through her wool suit as she fumbled with the door key and she actually felt a bit sorry for the half-dressed blond man. He was practically dancing around in obvious discomfort and suddenly took off toward the back of the building.

"Where do you think you're going?" she demanded.

"Um..." She could have sworn he was blushing. "Nature's calling. Really loud."

"No way! Not out here. Get inside!"

"But I really..."

"Inside. Now."

Iolaus shrugged and obeyed. If the Scully woman got too angry she might lock him outside and he'd surely freeze to death then. Well, if she wanted him to piss in the house, he'd piss in the house. By the gods, these people were strange.

It was blissfully warm inside the brightly lit room, but there wasn't a chamber pot anywhere in sight. Surely they didn't mean for him to use the potted philodendron beside the bed...

Scully saw his confusion and pointed to the bathroom door. "In there. And put the lid down when you're done. This is my room."

Iolaus pushed the door open and stepped into a blindingly white chamber. The walls were white tile and the unfamiliar furniture was shiny and white. Even the light was unnaturally white. An uncomfortable looking chair was the only thing equipped with anything resembling a lid. He lifted it and...

"Um... excuse me...?"

Mulder leaned into the bathroom. "Uh huh?"

"I can't... The water's in there... She can't mean... "

Mulder was looking at him with an indulgently patient expression. "That one." He said helpfully, pointing at the commode. "Don't worry about the water. There's more." He turned the faucet on the sink. "See?" Just push the little lever there when you're finished.

Iolaus considered it. Great. Fine. When in Athens, do as the Athenians do. When he'd quieted the call of nature, he gingerly pushed the lever at the back of the elaborate chamber pot and leaped back in amazement as the thing roared and sent sheets of water streaming down its sides to push away all evidence that he'd ever been there.

"Cool!" he laughed. "I'll bet even the gods don't have anything like this." He looked at his grimy hands and decided to try the sink. He scrubbed his hands under a stream of cold water . There wasn't any soap, only a tiny paper-wrapped brick, so he did the best he could and wiped the rest of the dirt on the white towels. The Scully woman wasn't going to like that.

But there were other things to think of. Like... if one knob gave water, would the other give wine? There was only one way to find out. No, only more water, but it was first warm and then steaming hot. Amazing! And the big white trough against the other wall had knobs just like these -- a bathtub? It wasn't the biggest one he'd ever seen, but if hot water came right out of the walls... It was too good to be true, especially after a hard day of fighting and weirdness and cold. He'd never been anywhere so cold, and a hot bath was too tempting.

"What is he **doing** in there, Mulder?"

"Sounds to me like he's running a bath. Fast learner considering he didn't know what a toilet was a couple of minutes ago."

Scully shot him a dark look. "You're starting to sound as crazy as he is. This guy's probably on drugs. What's your excuse?"

"Listen, Scully, I think he's telling the truth. I think that somehow he came here from ancient Greece. I mean, how many people do you know who know there was once a Grecian province called Boeotia?"

"Only you, Mulder. Only you. Other than a few college professors."

Mulder grinned. He was on a roll, now. "Well, unless I need to go back to Quantico and learn profiling all over again, this guy's no history teacher. And those clothes... when have you ever seen anything like them?"

Scully scowled and stalked to the bathroom door. "I was wrong," she muttered. "You're crazier than he is." She pounded on the door, which wasn't latched and swung open.

"Hey!" the blond man yelped. The naked blond man in a bathtub full of suds. The naked blond man in a bathtub full of suds who'd obviously discovered the last bit of her shampoo. She sniffed the air suspiciously. He'd emptied her box of Tropical Nights foaming bath beads into the water. Now that was too much!

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"I'm taking a bath!" he spluttered. "And you... you shouldn't be in here!"

"Why not? This is my bathroom. My shampoo. My bubble bath. And those are my towels soaking on the floor. And it's two o'clock in the morning and I really wanted a shower before I go to bed."

"What's a shower?" he asked innocently.

Scully's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I'd be delighted to show you," she said levelly, leaning into the bath enclosure and turning the water on full force.

Iolaus doubled over to protect his modesty.

"I'm a medical doctor. You haven't got anything I haven't seen before," she said coldly.

"Oh yes I have! You haven't seen mine!"

"I wouldn't have it any other way." She switched the water flow from "bath" to "shower" and a satisfactorily strong stream of water hit the blond man in the face.

He yelped in surprise and scrambled to his feet -- and discovered just how slippery a porcelain tub could be. He landed flat on his back with a mighty splash that soaked Scully to the skin and sent a miniature tsunami of sudsy water out the bathroom door. They stared at each other in open-mouthed shock for a long moment before Scully started to shake.

She's gonna kill me for sure, Iolaus thought. But instead of erupting into murderous rage, she burst into laughter. Iolaus giggled a bit nervously, but the woman was laughing so hard tears were running down her face.

"I guess I showed you!" she chortled. Her laugh was infectious, and Iolaus joined in helplessly.

"You sure did," he gasped.

Mulder stepped into the flooded room. "What are you doing, Scully?"

She tried to catch her breath for a suitably caustic answer, but couldn't. And suddenly, the sight of Mulder standing there warm and dry was completely unacceptable. But that was a situation she could do something about. She aimed the shower nozzle directly at her partner's face.

********

Hercules had never seen anything like the room Kritias led him to, but it was obviously home turf to the magician. An odd assortment of dusty desks, chairs and tables, and a collection of strange equipment filled the chamber. One of the machines sported blinking red lights and a buzzing alarm that matched the rhythm of the lights.

"Damn!" Kritias cursed as he stalked over to the terminal. He studied the screen for a moment and shut off the alarm. "It seems there really was a hit-and-run fatality." He faced Hercules and said, "So, Urias is dead - the guard who came through the portal with your annoying friend."

"How can you tell?"

"Not that you'll be able to understand, of course, but Urias was my trusted servant for a long time. He was the only one of your contemporaries I ever invited to accompany me back to the future. He wore an amulet that destroyed the body once he was dead. That way there would never be any messy details to sort out if he happened to die in a way that would draw unnecessary attention to my work. It also gave me the means to discipline him, or even to kill him if I found it necessary.

"That was what happened to the man back in your castle," Hercules realized.

"Exactly. The stone isn't a weapon in and of itself, but, still, the results could be devastating if it fell into the wrong hands. I'll be going back to that alley in a few minutes to retrieve it, but I'm a little too conspicuous in these robes. Unfortunately, I haven't got anything that will fit you. You'll have to stay in the car."

"Why don't you just get rid of me like you do your other inconveniences?"

"Oh, my dear Hercules, you underestimate your importance in the new course of history. Real history. My history, not the shadowy myths by which my contemporaries know you. You're going to help me realize my destiny; I'm not stupid enough to endanger that."

"There's no way I'm going to help you do anything except get all three of us back home as soon as possible." Hercules said coldly. He was nearly sick with worry about his friend. Urias had been killed almost immediately in this strange place and if Kritias could be trusted at all, Iolaus was in grave danger.

Kritias had pulled a change of clothing from a metal locker and struggled into a ski sweater and khaki pants. The clothing may have been suitable to their current time., but Kritias had obviously gained quite bit of weight since he'd last worn the trousers and the seams were stretched to the point of bursting. His bulk had seemed imposing in the brocade robes; in the new outfit he was merely a dumpy middle-aged man with thinning hair and a scraggly goatee. Hercules wondered if his status in this world was as unimposing as his appearance. The magician paused while lacing up his Nikes and regarded his unwilling companion with an expression that might have seemed compassionate if the emotion had reached his eyes.

"You might as well face facts, Hercules. You're not going to see your little friend again. Not alive, anyway. I brought Urias back with me almost a year ago by your time. It took him six months to recover from the mental and physical shock of his journey."

Iolaus was the most resourceful mortal Hercules had ever known. If anyone was equipped to stay alive in a dangerous situation, it was him. But there was no reason to let Kritias know the depths of the faith he had in his friend.

"That's the second time you've told me to give up on Iolaus. What is it about this place that's so hazardous?

"You'll understand soon enough," Kritias said enigmatically. He gathered a few items into a soft-sided leather briefcase, donned an overcoat and led his reluctant companion through a maze of empty corridors and down several flights of stairs to an underground parking garage. The vehicle he unlocked was a rusted yellow Cadillac scarred with a hundred small dents and scratches. Hercules would rather have trusted the cramped, smelly taxicab, and he had the dreadful suspicion that Kritias would be driving. He had just climbed into the passenger's seat when the beam of a flashlight nearly blinded him.

"Hey, what's going on here?" came an ill-tempered female voice. He looked out through the rear window and saw a tall Nubian woman dressed in a uniform similar to those the policemen had worn. But just when he began to hope that she would detain Kritias, she said, "Oh, hi, Professor Kritz. How was your trip to Greece?"

"Long and routine, Ms. Cleaver. Long and routine. But it's late now, and I'm off home."

The security guard glanced at Hercules and raised an eyebrow at Professor Kritz. "You all have a good night now."

Hercules stared glumly at the dashboard in front of him, considering his options. They weren't very attractive. Sure, he could overpower Kritias... Kritz... whoever he was. But what would that accomplish? Once they retrieved the red jewel, he could probably get back home. But he couldn't even consider going without Iolaus, assuming the hunter was alive. The big man's brow furrowed into a deep, anxious frown. He was going to have to keep playing along for now, if he was ever going to save Iolaus.

********

Across town, the object of Hercules' concern snuggled blissfully into the softest pillow he'd ever encountered. In fact, the whole bed might have been imported straight from Mt. Olympus. Scully had complained about the mattress being too hard; she'd obviously not spent many nights on bare ground. Mulder and Scully were still awake; he could hear them talking about him, but he was just too tired and too comfortable to care, and gradually their conversation faded to a soothing drone and was gone.

"What are we going to do about him?" Scully leaned back in the recliner sipping warm diet soda. "We can't take him back to Washington with us. I mean... he's hardly a stray puppy."

Mulder rubbed his stubbled cheeks and shook his head. "I dunno, you're mom would probably let you keep him if you promised to feed him and clean up after him."

"You're such an asshole, Mulder," she said affectionately. "What if he really is who and what he says he is? It's such a stupid story... No one would make up something like that and expect reasonable adults to believe it. But there's something about him... I just... He seems so... I don't know, so honest."

"Well, it's...." Mulder squinted at his watch... "Saturday morning. Let's get some sleep. We can go back to the place where we picked him up later. See if there's anything out of the ordinary. Check out the police, see if they found anything." He stood up and stretched, heading for the door. "See you in the morning."

"Oh, no you don't! You're staying here with him. I'll use your room. I'm going to die if I don't get a shower."

She took the room key from him and grabbed her overnight case. It was even colder outside, now, but at least the sky was still dark. Maybe the whole situation would look more plausible after a few hours of sleep.

PART III -- "Even here..."

Mulder sat in the dark for a while, knowing he was going to hate himself if he didn't get some sleep soon, and getting wider and wider awake with each passing minute. Scully would be ready to go early. Just staying up would probably be easier than fighting the blond man -- Iolaus, he'd called himself, for half of the bed. He took up an amazing amount of space for such a little guy.

He popped another sunflower seed in his mouth and considered the situation. He was probably sober enough to stay out of jail if he drove under the speed limit and didn't get caught. He really wanted to take a good look at that alley before anyone mucked it around... Scully would never know he'd been gone if he went now. If he only had the... Keys!! The keys to the Taurus were lying on the bedside table.

"Ah, Scully," he smiled fondly. "Bless your soggy little heart." He tiptoed over to retrieve the keys and silently slid into his coat. You're gonna freeze to death, Mulder, he told himself when he realized his shirt was still wet. But his other clothes were in his room and Scully had that key. Oh well, he'd been wet and cold hundreds of times before. Once more wasn't going to change much.

Light snow drifted softly down on the city. Hercules sat glumly in the front seat of the Cadillac, watching the streets and houses they passed, wondering how Iolaus was managing. Iolaus hated the cold, hated winter, and he wasn't terribly fond of cities, either. For the hundredth time in the past few hours, he prayed to whatever power was listening to keep his friend safe.

He watched Kritias' expression as the man drove. The fat scientist was grinning wolfishly, humming a tune, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He was enjoying this, Hercules realized, and his own fingers tightened. Although he considered himself a man of peace, he realized how much he would have enjoyed battering that smug face into oblivion.

Kritias pulled the car into the mouth of the alley and set the brake. He left the engine running. No sense letting his prize suffer in the cold. The alley looked different under its fresh covering of white. The soft, delicate blanket of snow hid much of the squalor and filth he'd seen a few hours earlier, but it showed him something else as well. No one had walked in the alley since the snow had started. Now if those damned policemen had just left well enough alone...

"I'm sure I don't need to say this," he told Hercules with a condescending smile, "But I'm a bit compulsive. Things will go badly for both of us if you try to get away, but I assure you that they'll be much worse for you." He took a flashlight from under the driver's seat and shone it into his unwilling companion's eyes for effect.

Hercules refrained from saying anything. He'd never had Iolaus' knack for the quick comeback and he wasn't in the mood for joking. He watched Kritias move into the shadowed depths of the alley. He considered his ability to operate the vehicle. It hadn't given Kritias any trouble. One foot pedal made it stop, the other made it go faster, and the wheel guided it. The dials and knobs were superfluous -- Kritias had paid them little or no attention. But it was a moot point; there wasn't anywhere to go.

He watched the older man searching for his precious red gem, digging through snow covered trash. He didn't look dangerous. He hadn't even sounded particularly dangerous, but there was something...

A cold finger of alarm suddenly dragged a line of gooseflesh up his spine. There was nothing in the world to stop Kritias from heading back into the past as soon as he recovered the stone. Whatever he was up to, he'd been busy with it long before Hercules and Iolaus had crossed his path; it had nothing to do with either of them, and he might well be ready to get back to work without their interference. And what better way to be rid of them than to leave them stranded in this dark world?

Hercules was out of the car in an instant, hurling himself at Kritias just as the other man found the stone and raised it to his face with a triumphant laugh.

********

Mulder drove through the slick, empty streets with exaggerated care. He would never have admitted it to his partner, but he wished she was at the wheel. Exhaustion and too many Scotch and sodas had dulled his senses and reflexes. He'd never hear the end of it if he was stopped for anything DWI's looked bad on an agent's record.

He found the bar easily enough, but he had no sense of how far Scully had driven when she'd left the place, or in which direction she'd traveled. If she'd remembered the drive from the police station, she'd have driven straight ahead for at least a mile, but who knew how much attention she'd paid? She'd been forcing light conversation to get his mind off the case. And now it was snowing again, which was no help. Nothing looked quite the same as it had earlier.

He was only a few blocks from the tavern when he saw the yellow Cadillac nosed into an alley... the alley?... between two abandoned warehouses. If it was a police vehicle its driver was in deep undercover. It might have been quite a ride twenty years ago, but it didn't look out of place in the slums now. He slowed to a crawl and examined the scene. It looked familiar, but the new covering of snow made subtle, deceiving changes in the landscape. But those warehouses, and the position of the alley... Yes, this was the place he was looking for. But who the hell belonged to that car?

As he drew closer he saw that there was someone sitting in the passenger seat; a very big someone, by the look of the silhouetted form. He killed the headlights and let the Taurus drift to the curb. At that instant, the Cadillac's door burst open and the big man charged into the alley, shouting "No!" Mulder had a fleeting impression of longish hair and a costume as outlandish as the one Iolaus had been wearing.

Oh shit! Another one! Mulder grabbed for his gun and came up empty-handed. Way to go, Mulder! His gun was back in the hotel room. The glove box was empty, too.

The sword! Iolaus hadn't carried his sword into the hotel room; he'd left it on the back seat. Mulder snatched it up and hit the pavement running. Damn, it was heavy. No wonder the little guy was in such good shape, toting the thing around all the time. Mulder rounded the corner into the alley trying to remember anything, anything at all from the three fencing lessons he'd taken in his life other than "always make sure your face mask is secure."

By the time he reached the alley, the big man had thrown someone to the ground and was holding him prone on the snow-covered pavement.

"FBI," Mulder panted. "Nobody move." He had the sword in a two-handed grip that had looked pretty damned menacing when he'd seen Adrian Paul use it on "The Highlander."

"Thank God!" cried the man with his face in the snow. "Can't you see this lunatic is assaulting me? I demand you arrest him at once!"

"That's not true," the man holding him down said calmly.

"It looks true," said Mulder uncertainly. "What's your story?" he asked the big man in woven leather trousers. Yeah, this was definitely another guy who didn't shop at K-Mart.

"This man has been terrorizing Arcadia for months," the fellow explained. "He usurped the king and had him executed. Now he's confiscating whatever he desires from the people, kidnaping and murdering young men and women."

"That's ridiculous," fumed the man on the ground. "I'm a scientist. My name is Nicholas Kritz. Professor Nicholas Kritz. I'm on the faculty at the university. You can check out my credentials."

"Oh, don't worry," Mulder assured him. King? Arcadia? "I will. And what about you?"

"I'm Hercules. My partner and I..."

"Hercules?" Mulder exclaimed. "You're Hercules?"

The big man rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Even here," he sighed. "Yes. I'm Hercules." He studied Mulder carefully as the FBI agent moved closer. His face registered surprise and concern when he realized, "That's Iolaus' sword!"

"Ah... yeah. Iolaus. You know Iolaus?"

"Of course I know him. He's my best friend. He and another man came... here a few hours ago."

"Your best friend," Mulder echoed. But he was still suspicious. "Describe him."

"Blond hair, only about so high. Crescent shaped scar over his right eye."

"Uh huh. Ratty leather vest?"

"Purple patchwork," Hercules confirmed.

"That would be Iolaus," Mulder nodded.

"Thank the gods," Hercules said, relief washing over his handsome features. "He's safe then."

"He's at the inn where we're staying... My partner and I... Scully."

"Will you idiots let me up!" Kritz demanded. "I am going to freeze to death here. And I promise you, Hercules, I can still make it very difficult for you and your little friend to go home."

Mulder sized up the differences in the two men. "Why don't we let him up?" he suggested.

"He was about to step through that portal and strand us..."

"Portal?" Mulder scanned the filthy brick walls that defined the alley. There was nothing unusual about any of them except for the amount of dirt and soot they'd collected. "Um... I hate to be obtuse, but I don't see anything around here that could be called a portal."

Hercules shifted his weight to point and froze. The wall was solid again. The portal had closed. "It's gone."

Kritz squirmed out from under him. "That's right. It's gone. You didn't think it would stay open forever, did you, you big oaf? Did you think that every time one of us traveled to another century we'd just leave the way open for any idiot who happened along?" He glanced at Mulder, who was grinning quizzically. "What the bloody hell do you find so amusing?"

"You're talking about traveling through time like it was crossing the street. And your pants are split."

Kritz stood up with all the dignity he could manage. "You're most unconventionally armed for an FBI agent, and you'll probably do yourself an injury playing with that thing. I demand to see some identification."

Mulder flashed his ID and looked from Kritz to Hercules and back again. He had no idea what he was going to do with them. He hated being caught without a plan, and he'd just done a fine job of it. He was pretty sure he could handle Kritz, but Hercules? All right, he wasn't as muscle-bound as might be expected for... Hercules. He was no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he was plenty big enough. Mulder had the sinking feeling that Krycek and Cancer Man would pay big bucks to see what Hercules could do to him. They might even sell tickets. And that was with the sword. Without it, the big guy could squash him like a bug.

"Could you take us to Iolaus?" Hercules asked. Mulder felt a little better hearing the genuine concern in the man's voice. Maybe he was one of the good guys after all. Which meant that Kritz was the one to watch. That sounded like a better scenario all the way around.

"Yeah. But we're taking my car." He waved his sword in the direction of the street.

"You don't expect me to leave the Cadillac here, do you? It will be impounded." Kritz had obviously played the wronged innocent before. "Your supervisor will hear of this."

Mulder sighed. "Oh, I'm sure he will. From several sources. But for now, let's get in the car." He looked to Hercules for support.

"My congressman will hear about this," Kritz continued, building steam. "And I'm sure the local police department won't take kindly to the way you're treating the citizens of this city."

"Yes, Sir. I'm sure they'll all want to know." Mulder nodded. He took Kritz by the upper arm and propelled him toward the end of the alley. "Let's go now, Sir." He knew he had nothing to worry about from the FBI, congress, or the local police. Scully was going to kill him within thirty seconds of the time he walked into the motel with these two in tow. Provided, of course, he got them to the motel. He wasn't at all certain he'd made the right decision in choosing to trust the guy who called himself Hercules. But he was considerably more likeable than Kritz. Of course, serial killers could be likeable when they chose to be, too. But at least the big guy was cooperating and Mulder did want to live long enough for Scully to get the chance to murder him.

Kritz made no attempt to get away, but he didn't make their passage along the slick pavement any easier than he had to. When they reached the Taurus, he balked.

"At least let me turn the motor off. That is a classic automobile and I doubt that your agency wants to replace it."

Mulder snorted. "That collection of rust and dents is about as classic as "Debbie Does Dallas"... Sir. If worse came to worse I could probably cough up the $500 it's worth all by myself." He opened the rear door of the Taurus and ducked Kritz's head as he propelled the professor into the back seat.

"Watch him," he told Hercules and headed for the Cadillac. What he found didn't make him any happier. The back seat was filled with cardboard boxes and unidentified electronic equipment. A soft-sided leather briefcase sat atop the mess, shiny vials inside reflecting back the glow of the dome light. Kritz was right, dammit, he couldn't just leave the Caddy sitting here. The Taurus, on the other hand, was expendable.

"Hey... um... " It felt ridiculous calling the man Hercules, but it had been a ridiculous night. "Hercules," he called. "Can you bring the professor over here? We're going to have to use this car after all." He didn't watch Kritz emerge from the Taurus. He knew the fellow had to be wearing a smug expression, and he didn't want to see it.

The front seat of the Cadillac was a tight fit. Kritz might not have been physically imposing, but he took up a lot of seat space, and Hercules nearly had to duck his head. Mulder offered up a prayer of thanks to the god of power steering and backed out of the alley.

Professor Kritz sat glumly between Mulder and Hercules, but Mulder caught him surreptitiously studying his captors. He wasn't as downcast as he tried to look. The outrage was real, but Mulder would have bet a week's pay that it wasn't about his citizen's rights being abused. And while Kritz wasn't the classical tough guy, there was a furtiveness about him that Mulder found disturbing.

"So, you're in the time travel business," he said lightly. "Any special methods? I didn't see any H.G. Wells stuff back there in the alley."

"People still expect to see the cumbersome contrivances of the 19th century mind when they think of time machines," the man snorted. "And Wells was a writer, NOT a scientist. Thirty years ago a computer filled a good sized room. Now they'll fit in the palm of your hand. You wouldn't begin to recognize a so-called time machine."

"It isn't a machine," Hercules said quietly. He reached into his tunic and pulled out the red gem.

Scully was right. The situation was insane. Iolaus was insane. Kritz was obnoxious and insane. Hercules was pleasant, but insane. Mulder was confused and exhausted and insane. His partner had been right about something else, too: none of this was going to look good on a report. "Y'know," he considered aloud as he drove, "Time travel's one of the all-time great science dreams. I would have thought that if the government had been working on a project with such tremendous implications, and that was successful -- even modestly successful -- some word of it might have gotten out, particularly in the Bureau."

Kritz's lip curled in scorn. "What in the world makes you think this is a government project?

"Oh, money comes to mind. I imagine there was a bit of expense involved in developing this time... thing. Probably more money than some third-rate cow college has to spend in a generation. You did say you were with the university, didn't you?"

"I am with the university. But the "project", as you call it, is mine and mine alone. And I intend for it to stay that way." He folded his arms across his chest and said no more.

The overcast sky was grey with pre-dawn light when Mulder parked the Cadillac in front of the Rest-A-While. Neither of his passengers had spoken for fifteen minutes, Kritz seemed to be napping -- but at least no one had gotten sick.

When the car stopped, Kritz raised his head and looked at the motel with a curled lip. "At least I can't complain that you're wasting the taxpayers' money," he observed sourly.

Mulder didn't comment. He had just realized that while he'd been lucky enough to find the car keys, he hadn't managed to pick up a room key on the way out. Scully had both of them. He peered blearily at his watch. She'd gotten maybe two or three hours of sleep. The inevitable had to be postponed, if it couldn't be avoided.

He tried the door, just in case he'd somehow managed to get out without locking it. Nope. And the Rest-a-While believed in good, solid, sturdy doors. He rapped lightly on the window, to no avail, then again, a bit harder. He could probably kick the door in after three or four tries, but that would be loud and probably painful. And expensive. He gripped the knob firmly and twisted until his face turned red.

And then it hit him. "What a putz," he said to no one in particular. He was trying to figure out a way to open a door and he had Hercules in the car, for crying out loud! And even if he wasn't the Hercules, he was a lot bigger than Mulder.

Hercules turned the doorknob effortlessly. "You could have winced a little," Mulder commented. The demigod looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry," he said with a grin. "But it wasn't locked." He pushed the door open and stepped aside. Mulder caught the flying lamp in the face and tumbled over backwards into the snow. Iolaus wasn't as sound a sleeper as he'd believed. He'd unlocked the door and waited in ambush. To confirm Mulder's theory, the blond man appeared in the doorway with sleepy eyes and hair sticking every which way, wrapped in a sheet.

"Don't sneak up on me like that," he said to Mulder. "I might have killed you." Then he saw Hercules and he was instantly wide awake. "Herc!" he cried, enthusiastically pumping the big man's arm in a warrior's grip, clapping him on the shoulder. "Boy, am I glad to see you! You won't believe this place! Hot water comes right out of the walls and the chamber pot cleans itself! And there's this thing you hold in your hand and talk into and someone halfway across the world can hear you. And did you see the roads...? And, oh, you've gotta see this! There's a box full of tiny little bards in here! You just push a button and one goes away and another takes its place... And..."

"Iolaus," Hercules quieted him, laughing along in spite of himself. "You're babbling."

"Whoa! And freezing. Come on inside. You're not gonna believe the bed in here!" Iolaus grabbed his friend's arm and started to drag him inside. "Sorry," he said to Mulder, who was trying to brush the snow off his suit and keep hold of the lamp at the same time.

The door to the next room opened slowly and Dana Scully peered out at them, looking like she'd been in bed with the flu for a week. She saw the Cadillac, the sullen man inside, Mulder holding the lamp, and Hercules.

"Jesus," she said, running her fingers through her hopelessly tousled hair.

"No," the big man said. "I'm Hercules."

"And I'm Joan of Arc," she countered. Mulder winced. Things were about to turn ugly.

Part IV "Aries, like the horoscope sign?"

"Let me get this straight," Scully said into her coffee cup. "You, Professor Kritz, are both on the faculty of the university and a sorcerer from ancient Greece."

Kritz opened his mouth to speak, but Scully shushed him and went on. "You... um... Hercules. You are from ancient Greece and your father is Zeus, king of the gods of Olympus."

Hercules shrugged amiably. "Well, we don't think of it as ancient Greece, but, yes. Thebes. In Boeotia."

"Boeotia. Yes. Of course." She blew into the steaming coffee and took another sip. "You," she looked at Iolaus, who was still wearing only a sheet. "We got your story last night. Boeotia. Thebes. Mortal."

Iolaus nodded enthusiastically and flashed his most charming smile. Scully felt herself beginning to blush and took another swallow of coffee.

"Three of us are speaking English and hearing English. You two are speaking Greek and hearing Greek. And you all want to go back to Greece. But we're not certain why Professor Kritz wants to go there. And he's not telling. Mulder, what are we going to do with these people? We have a plane to catch in five hours."

Kritz sat up straight in his chair. "You don't need to do anything except let us go. I can take care of the rest. The longer you keep me here, the more likely history changes itself due to my absence." He puffed himself out importantly. No one was impressed.

"He's lying," Hercules said simply. "I've only been with him a few hours, but I don't think he's told the truth about anything except his name the whole time."

Mulder had been keeping quiet, sitting at the desk with Scully's laptop. "Well, this is interesting," he commented. "There is a Nicholas Kritz at the University. He's an archaeologist. Hasn't actually taught a class for almost three years. He's been on a working sabbatical according to the university records." He looked up at Kritz. "So... Let me guess. You got the plans for your little device out of Popular Science and damned if it didn't work just like the ad promised."

Scully's eyebrows climbed towards her hairline. "An archaeologist. A time traveling archaeologist. Every boy's dream. Are you sure we haven't stepped into a comic book, Mulder?"

"More like Weird Tales, I'd say. The records also say that Professor Kritz and a colleague were working in the field two years ago. They were studying ancient volcanic caverns around the Mediterranean -- Sicily, Santorini, Israel, Greece..."

He cleared his throat to continue his report, but a blinding flash of white light exploded silently in front of the bathroom door. The smell of ozone filled the crowded room and a black-haired man appeared in its center. He was dark and elegantly muscled, dressed in a silk Armani shirt and expensive jeans. Smouldering dark eyes, full, sensuous lips, and a face made for glowering made his grin more sardonic than humorous. Both FBI agents sat in wide-eyed, stunned silence.

"Ares," Hercules acknowledged grimly.

"Well, well, well," the newcomer said in a low, melodious voice. "Little brother. I must say you were the last person I expected to see here." He turned his glance to Iolaus, who leapt to his feet, barely remembering to keep the sheet securely wrapped around his waist. "Except, of course, for you."

Ares stretched a hand out towards Iolaus and a crackling bolt of energy blasted across the room, catching the blond man in the chest and slamming him against the wall. Iolaus slid limply to the floor, where he sat with a dazed expression.

"Iolaus," Ares said slowly, as though the name tasted sour. "The last time I saw you was at your funeral. I don't think I ever laughed so hard."

"Hey, at least you cared enough to come," Iolaus said with an uneasy grin. He straightened his position against the wall, wincing at the effort of moving.

"Oh, I cared, all right. I was only sorry I wasn't the one who killed you."

Scully recovered her senses and rushed to kneel beside Iolaus. There was a round patch the color of a bad sunburn in the center of his chest. "Are you all right?" she gasped. He rolled his head around to face her and nodded slightly, but said nothing.

Ares shook his head in mock disapproval. "Always the lady's man, Iolaus. Some things don't change, even over thousands of years, do they?"

Scully flashed the god of war an indignant scowl. "I'm a doctor, if you don't mind!"

Ares chuckled mirthlessly. "Sure. Fine. Whatever." Then his eyes narrowed dangerously and he turned his attention to Kritz. "And **you**, you amazing incompetent, I just know you've got a brilliant explanation of why you're here."

"I... I... I came back to get some things I needed for my work," the professor answered with a nervous twitch that tried to look like a smile.

Ares snorted. "You know, for someone who lies so much, you're not very good at it. You're here because you screwed up. Again. Maybe it's time to re-examine our working relationship, Kritias."

"Oh, great Ares," Kritz fawned, going down on his knees before the dark man. "You know I'm your humble servant."

Iolaus pulled a face in spite of himself. "Eeeuuuw. That's disgusting," he said to Scully, who had slipped an arm behind his shoulders to cushion him from the wall.

Ares favored him with a sour glance. "Watch it, Blondie, I've got another bolt waiting, just for you," he warned. "All right, humble servant, let's go somewhere and discuss this privately." He stretched his arm out to the whimpering man on the floor. The air around Kritz seemed to stretch and swell for a brief moment and he vanished. Ares gave Hercules a condescending grin. "Don't you think it's about time you changed clothes, little brother? As a fashion statement that get up is a whole lot more than five minutes ago. And you might just be here for a while." He laughed unpleasantly, showing off his perfect teeth, and vanished in a spark of white light.

Hercules and Iolaus were accustomed to the comings and goings of various gods and goddesses, but Mulder and Scully were in new territory.

"Oh, Mulder, this is a whole lot weirder than alien abductions," Scully said appreciatively. "Yeah, Skinner's going to have a great time with this," her partner agreed.

"Mulder," she said reasonably, "If you think I'm going to write this up and submit it, you're out of your mind. I, personally, have been asleep for the last eight hours and have nothing to report at all." She turned to Hercules. "And since none of this has ever happened anyway, would you please tell me who that was and what the hell is going on here?"

Hercules sighed. "That was Ares."

"Aries," Scully repeated. "Like the horoscope sign."

"Ares," corrected Hercules, "Like the god of war."

"Oh, come on now," Mulder protested suddenly. "You want us to believe the gods of Olympus are real and that Mr. Easy-Come-Easy-Go is one of them?"

Scully stared at him in utter astonishment. "Why is that any more unbelievable than... than little green men abducting people, or shape-shifting aliens?" she demanded. "Or vampires? Or tiny little green bugs that suck the life out of you in the north woods? And what about Eugene Tooms? You don't blink an eye at that stuff, but when something pops up something that isn't in one of your precious little X-files, you cry 'foul'."

Mulder sat frozen, staring at his partner in wonder. For five years he'd both chipped away at her scepticism and relied upon it. Now she was the one going for the odd answer. Or was it so odd? What if the "gods" were alien beings of some kind, or even an offshoot of humanity. He'd met plenty of people who could perform unbelievable mental and telekinetic abilities. Maybe there was something there. There would be time to worry about that later. But for the moment, he decided to humor his partner.

"I... I'm sorry," he apologized, a tentative grin replacing the scowl on his face. "You're right."

It's hell what you hear when you haven't got a tape recorder, Scully told herself.

"Well," said Hercules, "It's great that we can get along, but we've got some problems here. If Ares is involved in what Kritias has been doing, it can only be bad news for Arcadia, and maybe for this place, too." He pulled the red gem from its hiding place inside his shirt and handed it to Mulder, who studied it carefully for a moment.

"Our professor was digging around in ancient caverns and found this whatever-it-is. But I just don't see Kritz accidently discovering that he could do time travel." Mulder turned the gem over and held it up to the sunlight.

Hercules considered it for a moment. "If the gem belonged to Ares, he might have sensed when it was uncovered and come to claim it. Or if it wasn't his, but he wanted it. And something about Kritias... Kritz caught his attention. If he willingly let something so powerful out of his hands, then he was after something that was more important to him than the stone. Maybe he wanted something accomplished that he couldn't do for himself but Kritias could do for him."

"But Kritz is a complete loser," Mulder mused. "What could he do that this Ares couldn't? Looked to me like the guy had plenty of unusual talents."

"He could go back in time," Iolaus said thoughtfully. He stood up with a grunt and a grimace, and Scully reached out to steady him. A tiny little alarm bell sounded in the back of Mulder's consciousness. She was starting to pay a lot of attention to the little guy all of a sudden. In fact, she was starting to look at him like Frohike looked at a new conspiracy theory.

"Ares wouldn't risk defying Zeus," Iolaus continued. "At least not directly. He talks big, but he's a coward. Remember when Callisto went back in time to kill Alcmene? He wouldn't go himself, but he sent me. Maybe this time he was using Kritias to do his dirty work."

"Which leads us to another important question," Hercules considered. "Just what is the dirty work?"

Scully sucked in her lower lip. "He said he came back to get something..." she mused.

"He was trying to cover up the fact that he didn't plan to come here at all," Hercules countered. "At least not today. I dragged him through the portal kicking and screaming. He used this thing to kill a man and then accidently sent Iolaus and one of his men to this place. And he said the other man was killed -- and that the stone destroyed his body."

Iolaus frowned. "Kritias' guard died almost as soon as we got here. And his body just kind of..." he shrugged... "Disappeared. I don't see how the stone could have done that. It was still back with Kritias when that happened."

"He said the man wore an amulet that destroyed his body," Hercules offered. "And when he took me to his work place, a machine told him that the man was dead."

"But he lies," Iolaus and Scully and Mulder said in unison.

"Wait a minute. He took you to his work place?" Scully asked. "Do you think you could find it again."

"No. We went there in a... 'City Cab'. The town guards sent for it."

"The town guards?" Mulder's face lit up. "Police? Hallelujah!" He reached for the phone, grinning broadly. "7684 Barkley," he announced after speaking to the police dispatcher for a few moments. "It's on the university campus. I say we go check out the mad scientist's laboratory."

"Wait a minute, Mulder. It's 10 degrees out there." All eyes went to Iolaus, clad in his sheet.

********

When they stepped out into the white winter sunlight, Scully was glad that the housekeepers weren't stirring yet. Hercules was still wearing his woven leather pants, but he was now stretching one of Mulder's sweatshirts beyond recognition. Iolaus wore the agent's jogging sweats, the too-long legs tucked into his boots, which had thankfully escaped being soaked through. Each of the time travelers was wrapped for warmth in a blanket with "Rest-A-While" stenciled in bold letters.

"I can't believe it's so cold here," Iolaus shuddered as Mulder led them to the yellow Cadillac.

"And I still can't believe you left the Taurus on the street," Scully complained to her partner. "Look at this thing! It's so full of junk we'll never all fit."

Mulder opened the back door for her. "If we take a couple of these boxes out you can sit in the back." In the daylight he could see that they held old computer parts - chips, boards, dog-eared manuals. He hauled one of the larger boxes out onto the pavement. "I can't believe this stuff. Looks like leftovers from a swap meet."

"Do you have any idea what it is?" Scully asked.

"No way. If I have a computer problem I take it to Frohike or Langley. They could no doubt give you a complete rundown on this stuff, but it looks like garbage to me." He put the box of parts in the room and waved Scully into the back seat.

"You'll pay," she whispered to him as she situated herself. She was about to put the bulging briefcase on the floor to use as a foot rest when Hercules stopped her.

"This is full of things he took from the laboratory," Hercules said. "He was going to take them back to Arcadia with him."

Scully grimaced and pulled the briefcase onto her lap. Rummaging through it would keep her mind off of her surroundings. "Don't forget to give him a Dramamine," she reminded Mulder. "This car's bad enough without having somebody get sick in it."

"Dramma...?" Hercules stumbled over the unfamiliar word.

"Oh yeah," said Iolaus solemnly. "I got seasick last night. These things really move." He was reasonably happy with his position between Herc and Mulder. It wasn't too crowded and he could see out the front window. He was pretty sure he wasn't going to get sick again, but he took the Dramamine from Mulder anyway. His stomach was still a little sore from last night's adventure; there was no need to tempt the Fates - presuming the Fates still operated here, of course. But Ares was here and that meant he needed to be ready for action without notice. There wasn't any time for feeling sick.

It was still very early morning and traffic was light. The few pedestrians they saw were bundled up against the cold and paid no attention to the yellow Cadillac and its strange assortment of passengers. Scully opened the briefcase and saw that it was full of glass vials and a few metal cylinders. She lifted one of the vials into the sunlight and read the label.

"This is weird, Mulder. He's got all kinds of antibiotics here - tetracycline, penicillin, vancomycin. Synercid - that's not even on the market yet. And vitamins - lots of beta-carotenes and B's. Huh! Here's some Vicodin. And morphine. You said Kritz was planning to take this stuff back to the your time with him?"

Hercules nodded solemnly. "That was the idea I got."

"He didn't look like a health nut to me," she mused. "What if he was planning to stay? Maybe he was expecting some kind of epidemic or disaster. Was this Ares into biological warfare?" She was rewarded with blank looks from Hercules and Iolaus. "Um... germ... plagues! You know, using sickness to weaken the enemy?"

"Plagues aren't Ares' style," Hercules considered. "He has nothing against them, but he's always been more interested in weapons."

"Like those shooting things you've got," Iolaus added.

Scully gently replaced the vials in the briefcase and closed it securely. She didn't want puzzles. She wanted answers.

********

Mulder opened the door to the converted classroom that served as Professor Kritz's office with the twelfth key he tried. The room behind the frosted glass door was dim. Dusty window shades had been fastened down with carpenters' staples and the overhead lights were shadowed with dust.

"I bet he's a real favorite with the maintenance staff," Mulder observed. Dust lay thick on the floor, disturbed by only a few recent footprints. "This is the right place, isn't it?"

Hercules nodded. "This was the machine that told him his servant was dead."

"It's an old tracking device, I think. Strictly surplus stuff." Mulder surveyed the jumble of aged equipment that crowded the back of the room. "I have no idea what most of it is."

"Maybe he doesn't, either," Scully ventured. "He might have picked up the whole lot for a few pieces he wanted. Ye gods! Look at this one, Mulder. I think it's part of an old x-ray machine. And... oh shit." She was looking at a bulky lead container next to the x-ray equipment. "Cobalt..."

Mulder opened his mouth for a snappy answer before the significance of what she said reached him. "There can't be any of that here. They strip the machines down to nothing before they junk them."

She looked up at him with bleak eyes. "There isn't any of it here, Mulder. The container's empty."

"He wouldn't be stupid enough... We'd better to find Kritz," Mulder said. "If he took that stuff back into the past..."

"He could start the nuclear age thousands of years before its time." Scully remembered the boxes of used electronics parts in the back of the Cadillac. A school kid could build a nuclear bomb with a collection half that size if he had the proper fissionable materials. Kritz was no school boy, and it looked like he had the raw material for disaster-- and he was working with the god of war. But Ares had whisked him off somewhere and there was no way to track them.

"Why don't we just go back to the castle ourselves?" Iolaus asked. "We've got the stone."

"Iolaus," Hercules reasoned, "It would be a miracle if we found what we were looking for. The castle's huge. And there are several layers of dungeons beneath it. We need Kritias. And to find him, we have to find Ares first. He's never been one to hang around Olympus. Maybe at one of his temples..."

"I don't think there are too many temples to Ares left," Mulder observed.

"Maybe not, Mulder. But there are still plenty of people who worship war."

"He'd stay near his worshipers," Hercules confirmed. "He draws power from them."

"I can think of one place people take war pretty seriously," said Mulder.

"The Pentagon," the agents said in unison. They both turned to look at Hercules and Iolaus, who were, themselves, exchanging puzzled glances.

"We can't take them to Washington, Mulder," Scully said after a long moment. "Not on a plane."

"We can't drive !" Mulder protested. "We wouldn't even get there until Monday. What do you propose? Teleportation?"

Hercules cleared his throat. "Actually, we might be able to arrange something like that. The gods are immortal. If Ares is still hanging around, maybe so are a few friendlier faces."

Iolaus brightened considerably. "Yeah, like Aphrodite. She'd help us out!"

Mulder was absolutely straight faced. "Goddess of love? We shouldn't have too much trouble finding her. We could just go back to the motel - the 20th century's temple to instant love."

Scully shot him a disgusted look. "You've been away from your video collection too long."

Both of the agents regarded Hercules with open-mouthed amazement as he called, "Aphrodite! We need you!" into the center of the room, especially when his cry was answered with a shower of pink sparks and rose petals and a peal of decidedly undignified laugher.

"Whoa!" the blonde goddess of love exclaimed as she materialized. "I haven't done that in, like, ages!"

Aphrodite hadn't changed much in the past few thousand years. Her golden hair still cascaded around her lovely face in a cloud of curls and she still favored minimal pink negligees.

"Hercules!" she squealed with delight, throwing her arms around her half-brother's neck. "And Curly!" She favored Iolaus with a big wet kiss that turned him an amazing shade of scarlet, then held him at arm's length. "And you guys are, like... young again. Too cool." Her brilliant smile faded a bit. "And... um... like, alive again. Some sort of special occasion? I mean, I just saw Hades and 'sephone the other day, and they didn't say a thing about this. You were always really good at getting out of there, Sweet Cheeks, but it's been a long time this round."

"Getting out of where?" Scully asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

Aphrodite turned a critical eye on the red-haired woman and her rather severe navy wool suit. "Who's the grim sister?"

"I beg your pardon!" Scully snapped.

"Oh, chill," Aphrodite dismissed her. The goddess waved her hand and Scully stood before them in a slinky royal blue silk nightgown.

"Hey!" Scully cried in horror.

Aphrodite merely winked at her and said. "It's just the right color for your hair, honey. And to answer your question, the Elysian fields. You know, the other side..."

"We didn't get out, Aphrodite," Hercules explained. "We haven't been there yet." He cast a look at Iolaus. "Not permanently, anyway. We took a more direct route." He pulled Kritias' red stone out of his shirt. Aphrodite took one look at it and stepped back warily.

"Oh, wow. It's true, then. That's the Eye of Chronos," she said after a long moment. "And it's big-time trouble."

Part V - The Eye of Chronos

"How much do you know about Chronos?" Aphrodite asked Hercules.

The big man shrugged. "King of the Titans. Zeus's father... my grandfather, I guess. I never really thought about that. It was foretold that one of his children would destroy him, so he ate them as soon as they were born to make sure they'd never plot against him. Zeus escaped and fulfilled the prophesy. All of the Titans except Prometheus were turned to stone and walled up in caves. Zeus threw Chronos into the Abyss of Tartarus."

"Didn't you ever wonder how Dad managed that? I mean... You've seen Prometheus - and he was one of the little ones. These dudes were impressive, but Zeus was sneaky. He stole Chronos' eyes while he was asleep and lured him over the edge of the pit while he was stumbling around blind. As soon as Chronos knew he was trapped, he reached out with his mind and turned his eyes into gemstones. Zeus had Ganymede put them in a crystal case under his throne, but the little twerp stole one and hid it away someplace.

"Chronos was the lord of time, Hercules. It's never had any power over him. He could look into any time he chose - past, present, future... and wherever he could look, his eye could send you."

"Why didn't I ever hear about it?" Hercules asked.

"Because, silly... gods can't use it. A full god can't even touch it, now that it's a jewel. Chronos may not have possession of his eyes, but they're still his. And you know how he hates the gods."

"Then why did Ares want it?" Iolaus asked. "If he can't use it, what good is it to him?"

Aphrodite's brow creased in consternation. "He wants to give it back to Chronos. He's got this crazy idea that if he helps Chronos get free, the Titans will back him and he can depose Zeus. But it has to happen in the past, back in Greece, because he figures that if he and Hera ruled had ruled Olympus instead of Zeus the Romans would never have been able..." She stopped, blushing. "Oops. Sorry. I can't tell you about that, Bro. It hasn't happened yet for you."

Hercules stared at his flighty half-sister in disbelief. "He wants to erase thousands of years of history? That's insane!"

Aphrodite shrugged. "Who knows, Herc? The last thousand years have been, like, totally weird. Mortals have gotten wa-a-a-a-y out of hand." She smiled and winked at Mulder. "But some of them are still pretty cute."

"You almost sound like you agree with Ares," Hercules challenged.

She sighed. "Sometimes I almost do." She shrugged and put her smile back on, but the fit wasn't quite right. "Come on. We've got to get you guys some clothes. Those pants were bad enough in the old days; they're really out of it now. And then we'll find Ares." She waved her hand gracefully, and a cloud of pink sparks appeared.

********

"What the..." was all Scully managed to say. When the sparks faded away, she realized that she was standing in the livingroom of her own apartment, still dressed in the ankle-length gown. The three men were still with her, but the blonde goddess was gone. Mulder still looked morning-after bedraggled, but Hercules and Iolaus had gotten a change of clothes somewhere along the way. Iolaus wore nicely weathered jeans and a soft blue ski sweater. Hercules' jeans were newer looking and his shirt was plaid flannel.

"Paul Bunyan lives again," she quipped. "All you need now is a blue ox."

"Where are we?" Iolaus asked. "This is a lot nicer than the inn."

"It's my apartment. Stay out of the bathroom. Mulder, we've just traveled several hundred miles." She looked to Mulder for some kind of confirmation. He glanced at his watch.

"We didn't lose any time," he commented. "Instantaneous travel. Not bad."

Aphrodite appeared again, now dressed in a simple, elegant pink suit, her golden hair gathered into a knot at the back of her head. "That's because there isn't any time to lose."

"Why did you bring us here?" Scully asked the goddess. "I don't think the god of war hangs out in my apartment very often." She looked down at her blue gown. "Unless you decided to let me change clothes."

Aphrodite took the other woman by the arm and led her into the bedroom, waving gaily at the men. "Back in a jif', dudes. Girl-talk time." She flashed Mulder her best "you-understand-how-it-is" smile, but all of her valley-girl flightiness vanished as soon as she and Scully were behind the closed bedroom door.

"I brought you here because you're going on a trip, and it's not gonna be any vacation. Change into something comfortable."

While Scully dressed in old jeans and a sweatshirt, Aphrodite rummaged in her closet and pulled out an old woven tote bag of vaguely Grecian design. "This ought to do," she said to herself. When she handed it to Scully it was too heavy to be empty. The red-haired agent looked at the contents with a puzzled frown.

"This is going to save the world?"

"Where you're going, it could be a big help."

"Okay," Scully considered, "And just where are we going, anyway?"

"It's not so much where as when."

Realization dawned across Scully's face. "You're sending us back to ancient Greece, aren't you?"

********

Twenty minutes later the goddess of desire led her four charges outside, where a pink stretch limousine awaited them. "I do a little consulting for Mary Kay," the goddess explained when she saw Mulder's raised eyebrow.

The uniformed chauffeur, a stunningly handsome blond man with shoulder-length hair and body-by-Nautilus, leaped out of the car to open the door for them. Scully stared at the man for a moment before sliding into the sumptuous leather seat. They were already pulling out into traffic when she realized that she'd seen him before. "Fabio?" she asked.

Aphrodite laughed. "No, sweetie. It's Proteus. But he does a good imitation, doesn't he? Who would have guessed you were the bodice-ripper romance type?"

The limousine slid elegantly through light Saturday afternoon traffic. Hercules watched the city sights as they gave way from residential suburbia to nation's capital. It was an icy, glistening study in contrast. Poverty and magnificence shouldered each other out of the way.

Mulder tried to keep his attention on where they were going it wasn't the Pentagon after all. They'd crossed the river into DC and were headed toward Georgetown. They stopped in front of an elegant brick building that was newer by a century than any of the surrounding houses, but had been carefully designed to blend in with the atmosphere of the neighborhood. A discrete plaque next to the door read, "Ares Imports, Ltd." After seeing Ares in action, Mulder doubted that this particular importer had many dealings with Customs.

"Yes?" came a disembodied, but sarcastic, female voice when Aphrodite pushed the doorbell. "How may we help you?"

"Give it a rest, Discord," the love goddess said impatiently.

"Bitch," came the surly reply, but the door buzzed open. The pouty-faced junior goddess met them in the foyer of what, to all appearances was an elegant townhouse. She still wore her Olympian leathers and still looked like an under-aged bondage babe. Her eyes narrowed dangerously when she saw Iolaus, and she raised a long-nailed hand to toss an energy bolt at him; but she froze in mid-gesture, her hand and arm surrounded in a sparkling pink aura.

"Uh uh," said the love goddess severely. "Bad dog. Now where's Ares?"

"Make an appointment," Discord sneered. "I'm sure he's got a little free time he can work you into next year."

Aphrodite's eyes narrowed dangerously, but before she could spoil her reputation, the god of war sauntered into the room. "Ah, Discord," he said fondly. "As a receptionist, you make an excellent stripper." He wagged a finger in her direction and part of her bodice snapped apart.

"Hey!" she squealed, holding her costume together with her free hand. She turned and stalked off toward the back of the building.

Ares folded his arms across his chest and regarded his siblings and their companions. "Why do I get the feeling this isn't a social call?" he asked smoothly.

"Godly intuition," Hercules answered dryly. "We need to talk about your little scheme with Kritias."

Ares opened double doors to a spacious parlor. "Do make yourselves comfortable," he said solicitously. "The professor isn't here right now. He's... ah... studying the error of his ways. I sent him back to Arcadia so he can wonder what it will be like to be stranded there for the rest of his miserable life."

"Ares," Hercules began again, "We know what you've got planned, and it won't work. Zeus will never let you erase thousands of years."

Ares laughed wickedly. "If it works, Zeus will never know about it."

"And neither will you. Don't you understand? If you change everything, the Ares that you are now will cease to exist. Everything you've ever done will be erased. Don't you have **anything** you want to preserve?"

Ares leaned his face within inches of Hercules'. "That's something I had to consider. But I decided I'm willing to take the risk. Whatever happens under my rule is bound to be better than this."

Hercules sighed. Logic had never appealed to the god of war, and morality wasn't an issue. He searched for the words to refute his half-brother, knowing that he was unlikely to break through Ares' denial.

Scully approached the dark god, straight and fearless. "You're not in possession of all the facts," she said simply.

"Oh, really?" He cupped her chin in his hand.

"Really," she answered cooly. "Maybe the professor's plans are different than yours. We have every reason to believe that he has taken the components for a nuclear device back to the past with him. "

Ares froze. "Impossible," he rasped. He looked to Aphrodite for confirmation. She shrugged and nodded.

"Looks that way, Bro," she said. "Another one of your flunkies with his own agenda. Go figure. One little taste of power and he wants to rule the world. Of course, with a nuke, there wouldn't be much left of our little corner of the world. Like, it might be even worse now if he sets off a bomb back in Arcadia." She laughed ruefully. "You'd have to get a new gig. There have to be people around to fight those wars you're so fond of."

Ares turned on her. "Don't start with me, Aphrodite."

He turned back to Scully. "You're bluffing."

She met his intense gaze undaunted. "No, Sir. I'm not." Ares released her and she continued. "I am a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My partner and I have found evidence that Professor Kritz was in possession of an unknown quantity of radioactive cobalt. And he had a car full of electronic components. It isn't that difficult to build a simple nuke if you have the materials. I'm sure you knew that. You **are** the god of war."

"She's telling the truth, Ares," Hercules said earnestly. "The man has become a petty tyrant. He has half of Arcadia under his control already. You know what happens when greedy, insignificant men get a taste of power. They want it all."

Ares shook his head. He'd always considered Kritz an educated idiot, but surely he wasn't stupid enough to...

"Show me your identification," he demanded. Scully produced a slender wallet from her tote bag and handed it to the dark god. He examined its contents and glanced at Aphrodite. She'd always liked a good joke, but she wasn't smiling now. **Damn!**

Hercules and Iolaus couldn't begin to comprehend all the implications of the situation. They'd never even seen gunpowder; a nuke was beyond their imaginings. But. As god of war, he had seen the effects of a nuclear attack. And he knew that such an event in the deep past had to be avoided at any cost. He'd find another way to get the Eye back to Chronos. The FBI agents were products of the twentieth century. He needed their experience. As much as he hated to admit it to himself, there was only one answer. "You four are going back to Arcadia and straighten this mess out."

Iolaus pulled a face, "Oh, sure. Send us to do your dirty work. You haven't changed at all." Ares' eyes narrowed dangerously, but the little blond man was undaunted. "Fine. Throw me against another wall. The only thing you'll accomplish is making me less useful."

"You're lucky I need you for this, Iolaus," he growled. "Unfortunately, you're the only one who can use the Eye of Chronos to go back to the ancient world. I can't afford to send you back, myself, and you're the only full mortal here who's actually been both places. Find that device and bring it back here where it can be safely disposed of."

Iolaus sighed. Whatever the thing was, it had to be brought back. But then there might be no way to keep Ares from altering history. He looked at Mulder and Scully. He'd come to like them in the last few hours and he didn't want to do anything that might put them in jeopardy. Succeed or fail, if the changes were great enough, they might never even be born. He didn't want to risk that. He turned to Hercules, who nodded silently. He took a deep breath. "Okay, Ares, how does the stone work?"

Part VI Endgame

They materialized in a hillside meadow brilliant with spring flowers. Kritias' castle was about half a mile away across a narrow valley, its battlements gilded with late afternoon sunlight.

Scully sniffed the fragrant air as though it was a fine perfume. It was absolutely clean and clear no smoke, no smog, no industrial stink, no engine fumes. This is real, she thought. No place on earth has air this clean. We've really gone back in time.

Hercules and Iolaus were once again dressed in their own clothes and Iolaus' sword and scabbard hung from his belt. She and Mulder were still dressed for the twentieth century, and she was carrying her tote bag.

Hercules looked up at the sun. "We only have a couple of hours left before sunset. We'd better get moving."

The walk was longer than Scully had expected and the terrain was rough. She was saying silent prayers of thanks to the god of footwear for her Reeboks before they'd gone very far. As they approached the castle it became apparent that there were no guards posted and the massive gates stood open. Last time Hercules and Iolaus had made the journey they'd seen uniformed guards posted everywhere. Now the quiet was overwhelming; even the bees and songbirds were quiet.

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Hercules commented.

"Hey, maybe everyone's on break," Iolaus suggested hopefully. "After all, Kritias thinks we're still in the future."

They entered the dusty, abandoned, courtyard walking silently, swords at the ready. Scully wished she'd packed her semi-automatic. This was turning into a spook house tour.

It was Mulder who first noticed the sound, a steady, low-pitched muttering that seemed to come from within the keep ahead of them. The door stood ajar and they crept into the huge audience chamber inside on silent feet.

Kritias, robed again in his magician's garb, sat on the throne, holding his head and rocking back and forth and babbling to himself. "What am I going to do now? What am I going to do now?" It was a weird, troubling mantra that stopped dead when he saw who had joined him.

"Thank God!" he cried. "I've never been so happy to see anyone in my life!" He jumped to his feet, carefully skirting the box that sat open in front of the throne. "You've got to help me stop it!"

"Stop what?" Hercules asked. But Mulder and Scully exchanged the briefest of horrified glances before they rushed to the dais.

The box had probably started life as a makeup case or an expensive jack-in-the-box. But it had been reincarnated as something terrible; a tangle of wires and a digital timer showed above the rim. The timer's glowing red display read 02:10:00. As Mulder bent over the device, it changed to 02:09:59.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Mulder groaned, scrubbing his face with both hands.

"I... I didn't mean to start it! I was just examining it... and it buzzed and the timer started. I wasn't ready to use it!" Kritias looked like he'd sell his soul for a quick ride home.

Mulder was pale and sweating. Hercules knew the man was no coward. The box contained something terrible, indeed. "What is it?" he asked.

"Have you ever seen a volcano erupt?" Scully asked flatly.

Hercules nodded. He'd nearly been caught in a lava flow once when Mt. Etna had decided to blow her top.

"What's in this box will release a fire storm worse than a volcano. Everyone within half a mile could be killed instantly. Thousands more will die horribly from the poisons it releases. And we've got..." she looked at the golden light of sunset streaming in through the keep's windows... "until a little after dark to stop it."

"Can't you just take it apart?" Iolaus asked. "It's not very big."

"What about it, Professor?" Mulder asked. "Who put this thing together for you?"

The fat magician wrung his hands frantically. "A man named Herman Benedick. They call him..."

"...The Wire," Mulder finished for him. Despair clouded his handsome face, and the color drained from Scully's. "When?"

"In August. The last time I went home -- on purpose. I paid him very well. Surely he knows how to stop it."

Mulder and Scully exchanged knowing looks and Mulder shook his head. "I'm sure he did. Unfortunately, Mr. Benedick was killed six weeks ago. Another one of his creations went off while he was delivering it to an undercover agent. We were lucky in a way: that one was just dynamite. Only six people died. We closed the case yesterday. "

"Surely he made notes, diagrams, something!" Kritz suggested.

Mulder snorted. "What if he did? They went up in flames. Apparently his timers were even too tricky for him. The best bomb expert I know was working on the case and he said he was glad he'd never come up against one of The Wire's artworks."

"What about Ares?" Scully asked. "He wanted us to bring the bomb back to him so it could be disposed of."

"No," Hercules said quietly. "Ares is still the god of war. He'd find some way to use it to his advantage in your world. It has to stop here, where the Ares who exists in this time knows nothing about it."

Mulder snapped his fingers. "What about this Chronos character? The one who wants his eye back so badly. Maybe he could help us send it somewhere it can't do any harm. Aphrodite said he was the time lord."

Hercules considered. "If Chronos uses the Eye to escape the Abyss, it could change everything. A war between the gods and the Titans would be a catastrophe."

"Could be," Mulder agreed. "But if that bomb detonates here, it will be a catastrophe. No "ifs", no "maybes". And it will change everything. I say take it to Chronos."

"I agree," Scully said solemnly. "There's no way I can tell you how terrible it will be if that bomb goes off. Stopping that is worth any risk."

"But if we give him the stone, you'll be stuck in this time. There won't be any way to send you back." Iolaus protested. "We can't let that happen."

Scully bit her lip to keep it from quivering and she took Mulder's hand. He nodded wordlessly. "We'll take that chance, Iolaus," she said softly.

"No," Iolaus countered. "You'd be giving up everything. Your families and friends would never even know what happened to you."

Scully smiled sadly. "You're very sweet. But we've both known for a long time that we could lose everything at any time. It's part of the risk we take just doing our jobs. And if we don't stop this, then nothing else matters. Our world won't be there to go back to."

Mulder squeezed her hand. "So where do we find Chronos?"

Hercules sighed. "The Abyss of Tartarus. It's a bottomless pit that opens up on Olympus. There's no safe way in or out. Hera's down there, and Chronos. But they went over the edge. No mortal could survive the fall and no god can carry the Eye. I guess..."

"Forget it, Herc," Iolaus interrupted. "You're not going. Hera would never let you out alive - and you can't get rid of her by pushing her in, because she's already there. Maybe one of the gods could send me there."

"That doesn't make any sense, Iolaus. Even if we could talk one of the gods into sending you down, what's going to bring you back?"

Iolaus shrugged off the question. The answer was too obvious. "Chronos. If he doesn't kill me, he'll probably send me back... Won't he? The way I see it, the problem's going to be getting in, not getting out. Somehow, I don't think Zeus is the one to ask about that. If we get the Eye back to Chronos, Zeus may be history."

Hercules shook his head. "Hades is the only one who might listen to us. If this thing does what Mulder says it will do, he'll be busier than he's ever been - and he's always buried in paper work the way it is. Persephone will have to be leaving any day now she'll be pretty frosted if he can't spend any more quality time with her."

01:45:01

The lord of the underworld buried his head in his hands, sighing from the depths of his soul. Why couldn't these crises come up when Persephone was with Demeter? All those thousands of deaths would keep him busy, keep his mind off his loneliness. But now...

"Are you certain this... this bomb is so powerful?"

Scully was trying to keep her attention on the conversation, but Hades' chamber was a distracting place. The furnishings were royal, if somber, but people who were obviously dead kept wandering in and out. They were in a wide variety of repair, from pale, but unblemished, to mutilated and decaying. She wished Mulder had come along, but someone had to stay with Kritias and the bomb, and Iolaus was a comforting presence amongst all these godly and supernatural figures.

"Hellooooooo," the god of the underworld called to her.

"Oh!" Scully snapped to attention. "Sorry, it's just that I've never been surrounded by walking dead before."

Hades rubbed his aching temples. "It's the backlog. Once we move them on to their final destinations, they look a lot better. Now, back to the matter at hand. This bomb thing..."

"It's the most destructive weapon ever devised by man. It's only been used twice in war. More than fifty years ago, in the time I come from. The whole world's been in turmoil over its use ever since. Kritias paid a criminal to make the thing for him. We need to find a way to send it somewhere it won't hurt anyone -- or change history."

The melancholy god nodded. "I'm sure Chronos would be able to help you, but is there any reason he'd want to?"

Scully sneaked a glance at Hercules. He'd warned her to say nothing of the Chronos stone. "I don't know, Sir," she admitted. "But it seems to be the only chance we have of avoiding total disaster."

Hades pondered the problem for a moment. The idea of thousands of unscheduled dead to process was an unattractive prospect. And Hercules would owe him, big time, instead of the other way around. Next time his pesky sidekick got himself killed, he'd finally be able to close the case. No one had ever had a file that fat before. Yes, that would be good. He smiled kindly at Iolaus before he said to Hercules, "All right. Iolaus and the woman can go. But if they're in the Abyss for more than an hour they find their own way out. And no one hears about this. Ever."

Even as Hercules thanked his uncle, a golden door appeared at the back of the chamber. It slowly opened of its own accord, revealing a vast cavern of darkness and flames. Iolaus took a deep breath and nodded to Scully. "I guess this is it," he said in a voice tinged with trepidation. He reached out a hand to Hercules, but instead of giving him a warrior's shake, the demigod pulled him into a rare hug. "Be safe," he whispered into the smaller man's ear.

Iolaus nodded, not trusting himself to answer. Then he took Scully's hand and they crossed the threshold into the Abyss without another backwards glance.

01:30:45

As they stepped through the door, the floor vanished from beneath them and they found themselves floating unsteadily in nearly total darkness. Vertigo gripped them in its queasy grasp as they drifted down, down towards a spot where there was bare rock floor instead of fingers of greenish flame.

They landed hard. Iolaus fell to his knees on the jagged rock floor of the Abyss and the sudden pain banished his dizziness. Scully kept her feet under her, but staggered as gravity took hold of her once again. Hollow, ringing silence filled the immense chamber. The brilliant flames made no sound and generated no heat.

Iolaus rose unsteadily to his feet and looked around. The treacherous floor and the flames were the only things visible in the unfathomable darkness. He took Scully's hand again and she squeezed it gratefully. Then the earth beneath him rumbled and shook, and he was once more tumbled to the ground on his back, and pulled Scully down on top of him. The sharp rocks bit to the bone and involuntary tears blinded him for a moment. When his vision cleared he found himself looking at two immense, calloused bare feet, each as large as an elephant, and the massive ankles above them.

"C-Chronos?" he ventured warily.

The entity before him instantly shrank to a more manageable size, no larger now than Prometheus. In fact, with the great, hairless head visible, Iolaus realized that the Titan looked very much like Prometheus. Perhaps the great dark eyes were subtly less kind and the mouth sterner, but there was no mistaking the resemblance.

Eyes! Iolaus realized with a shock. Whoever the giant was, he definitely wasn't blind.

"You spoke." The voice surrounded him, so deep it resonated in his chest.

Iolaus gave Scully a boost up and clambered to his feet. "You aren't Chronos, are you?" he asked.

The still-giant being bent to place himself at eye-level with the tiny mortals who had disturbed his meditation. "And who would I be, if not Chronos?" Iolaus caught his breath with a start. Chronos wasn't blind at all. The huge eyes that studied him were flawless, deep hazel and aglow with intelligence.

He held out the red gemstone with a shaking hand. "We were bringing this back to you. We thought it was your eye, but it looks like it would kind of crowd things."

The Titan's laughter shook Iolaus' soul and he shook his head. "Zeus... The world must be a strange place, indeed, with him ruling on Olympus. He's so easily diverted. And he's not really very bright, is he? My eyes regenerated within an hour after he stole them."

"I don't understand. Ares thought if you could see, you'd come out of the Abyss."

Chronos chuckled again. "Why should I? I like it here. I enjoy the solitude, the peace. Even Hera rarely disturbs me. She's always had the temperament of a harpy; even as a child there was no pleasing her. But she's usually off somewhere scheming to get back to Olympus. She still wants to rule. She hasn't yet discovered that there is no joy in power, no satisfaction in revenge. Until she realizes that, she will be unable to open her mind to the fact that she is no more a prisoner here than I am."

Iolaus couldn't understand the attraction of the Abyss, but then, he reasoned, he wasn't a Titan, either. Ares wasn't going to be happy. His prize jewel had turned into a trinket as far as his plans to rule Olympus went, but Iolaus knew the stone could still be incredibly dangerous if the god of war found a way to do some time-shifting of his own.

He held the gem out to the Titan. "Please take it back" he urged... "We need for you to send this woman and her friend back to their own time, but please, when you're done, keep the stone. It may not be any real use to you now, but it's too dangerous to let humans - or Ares - get hold of it again. Kritias is about to blow Arcadia off the map, and Ares wants to erase the last several thousand years. Well, I guess it would be the next several thousand years here."

"He can not do that," Chronos said mildly. "The past is immutable." He turned to Scully. "And this is your past."

"But..." Iolaus easily found an example. "What about the Chronos Stone? It did change the past. Twice. We kept Alcmene from being killed and Herc saved Serena."

"No, little mortal. You changed nothing. The changes Callisto made could never have become permanent. What is past is past -- what you accomplished was already part of your own history. Only one time since the world began has the past truly been changed, and you played a major part in that change."

Iolaus felt his mouth go dry. "Gargarencia." Hercules had finally told him the story of their journey to that beast-ridden village over the mountains. Hercules and Zeus, and perhaps Chronos, were the only beings on earth with memories of the three days that had been lost when Zeus reversed time. Iolaus had made that journey, too, and had died in the Amazon forest, but his memory of that trip had been lost forever with the three days that had been wiped from history.

"Gargarencia," echoed Chronos. "That action used up the gods' power to alter the river of time. And mine." He chuckled at the mortal's bewildered expression. "Zeus alone could never have done it. But I helped him; Hera had gotten completely out of hand. Zeus never knew of my intervention. And he still can't understand why he no longer has the gift of altering the time stream."

"The time stream..."

"People think of time as an arrow in flight, that it runs straight and true, and travels only in one direction. But time is a river. It has always had currents and eddies, rapids and whirlpools, tributaries, and little dead-end backwaters. The turbulence created at Gargarencia created many, many more. But the main channel still flows true, as it always has, as it always will."

"And Serena lives in one of those dead ends?" Iolaus asked.

The Titan nodded. "Only there."

Scully considered the possibilities. "Then if there is a nuclear blast in this time frame, it was already a part of my history."

"Exactly," the Titan said with a smile.

"Wasn't there a huge volcanic explosion on a Greek island... Thera? Or Santorini? Was that it?"

The Titan shook his head. "The island of Thera was destroyed hundreds of years ago. It was a volcano. Nothing more. But even as we speak, another great destruction is building. I think if you send this "bomb" there, no one will ever know the difference."

He reached out and gently took the red gemstone from Iolaus. His eyes rolled back in his head and the jewel glowed in the flame-lit darkness. After a long moment, he handed the Eye back to Iolaus. "Go now," he said. "When you return to Arcadia, create a portal. Someone must carry the bomb and the stone through the time door. It will remain open long enough for whoever makes the journey to dispose of them and return."

"But what about Scully and Mulder? If we get rid of the jewel that way, they can't get back to their own time," Iolaus protested. "It isn't fair to keep them from going home."

Chronos shook his head. "You have no faith," he lamented.

"I believe you'll take care of it," Scully said evenly. "It would mess up too much if we stayed. And there's too much work for us to finish at home."

"Yes," Chronos agreed. "Even though this time has its attractions for you..." Iolaus felt a brilliant blush creeping up his face as Scully nodded, "You belong in your own time. As do you, Iolaus. You both have much to accomplish." He made a motion of snatching something out of the air and reached out to Scully. She took a robin's-egg blue pendant from him.

"This stone is much less powerful than the other, " he told her solemnly "But it will move you through time if you hold it and concentrate on your destination. Choose wisely; it can only be used twice, and only by mortals. Go, now. You have work to do."

"Thank you," Iolaus said. But he never knew whether the Titan heard him or not, for between one breath and the next, he and Scully were back in the courtyard of Kritias' castle.

00:30.14

"Where the hell have you been?" Mulder cried as Iolaus and Scully ran into the audience chamber. He pulled Scully into a hug, holding her tight for a moment. "And why the hell did you come back?"

"It's okay!" Iolaus assured him. "Chronos agreed to help us. We can get rid of this thing without changing history and we may even live to tell about it. Or not tell about it..."

Kritias sat dejectedly on the throne. He seemed to have shrunk. There was no longer any hint of power about him. He was just an overweight middle-aged man who had run out of options, no longer a threat in anyone's mind.

No one noticed his eyes light up with renewed purpose when he saw that Iolaus still carried the Eye of Chronos. He watched as the blond warrior held the jewel before him and sent a red beam of light into the castle wall only a few meters from where the first doorway had opened less than twenty-four hours before. So the Titan hadn't wanted it after all; perhaps there was still a chance to salvage the situation. His attention turned inward as he began to plot anew.

"What now?" Hercules asked his partner.

Iolaus glanced at Kritias, but the magician was lost in his own little world. "I take the bomb and the Eye through that door and leave them," he said very quietly. "Chronos chose the place. He said this portal goes where the thing could explode and not affect history. So I guess I'd better get going." He picked up the box as though it were as delicate as a cracked egg and steeled himself to make the final journey.

Hercules stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. "I guess we'd better get going," he corrected his friend. Iolaus met his gaze and nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Hercules took the bomb and steadied it under his arm.

Scully pulled away from Mulder and threw her arms around the Iolaus. "Be safe!" she said into his ear as he hugged her close, and punctuated her statement with a kiss that could have rivaled one of Aphrodite's.

"Hey," he said with a crooked grin, "Does this mean I can use your bathroom?"

"Maybe," she allowed. "But if you don't go pretty soon it won't matter."

"You heard the lady," Hercules said. Without another look back, the two heroes vanished into the red void.

00:22:25

It was full dark when Iolaus found himself standing beside his friend in another back alley in another unknown city. The air was hot and thick with smoke from a burning building they could see a few blocks away. They knew not where they had come or into what time, but there were none of the strange sights or smells that had made the future city so obviously alien. The street was unpaved, a mixture of sand and dust and cinders, and the buildings were sun-baked brick. Sounds of a mob shouting reached them in a muffled roar.

"There are people here!" Iolaus cried, turning to Hercules with a stricken face. "There's got to be some mistake. Chronos said it wouldn't make any difference. I must have done something wrong!"

A terrible scream raked their ears and a woman staggered into the alley fifty feet from where they stood momentarily frozen in horror. In the red glow from the fire they could see that she was naked except for a torn shift, and bleeding from a dozen wounds. "Help me!" she pleaded, reaching desperately out to them as she fell to her knees.

Before either of them could move, a crowd of men and women set upon her with stones and clubs and her shriek was cut short.

"By the gods!" Iolaus exclaimed. He dashed the Eye of Chronos to the ground and charged the angry mob. "What are you doing? Are you mad?"

"There's another one!" shouted a bearded man in the flowing robes of a desert dweller. "Get him!"

"Oh, boy," Hercules sighed. Torn between the need to dispose of the bomb and the even greater need to get his friend out of harm's way, he hesitated only a moment before he threw the box into the air with all his strength. It shot into the sky as though it had been launched by a rocket.

Iolaus was holding off half a dozen attackers with kicks and fists, but more crowded into the narrow alley and the throng pushed him relentlessly against the wall, even when he grabbed one of the men by the arm and swung him around like a weapon, toppling the first wave like ninepins. The effort threw him slightly off balance, and just as Hercules reached his first target, a spear swung like a club took Iolaus behind the knees and sent him reeling to the ground. A battle axe glinted above him in the light of the fire as it was raised for the killing blow. Hercules launched himself at the axeman, downing him instantly and sending the weapon swirling through the air. The demigod leapt high to retrieve it. He brandished the great weapon, twirling it like a baton.

"He's a madman!" someone cried.

Behind him, Iolaus bounded to his feet, stepping back only far enough to draw his sword. "You'rea madman?" he commented. "Who are these people?"

"I'm not sure I want to know," Hercules answered, readying himself for a fight The mob closed in and surrounded them, but they were back-to-back now, fighting as one, as they always had. The conflict was short and uncharacteristically bloody. The men they faced were not warriors, but they were crazed into some vile, murderous rage, and while the heroes tried to beat off their foes without killing them, within a very few moments a ring of dead and unconscious bodies lay at their feet. A swell of alarm swept the crowd, and as a flock of birds in flight will turn as one, with no command, they fell back, broke and retreated to the alley's mouth.

Hercules scanned the night sky. His divine strength had served him well; the deadly box was still out of sight, but he knew it could not defy gravity forever. He clasped Iolaus' shoulder and nodded in the direction of the time portal. They turned and ran, leaving the hellish battle scene behind.

00:04:00

They burst through the portal into the torchlit castle still running. Iolaus fell to his knees, gasping like a wind-broken horse, and Hercules pulled him up. "We did it!" he said hoarsely. But neither of them looked like they'd won any kind of victory.

Iolaus nodded. "Yeah," he panted. "But at what price?"

"We'll never know," said the demigod. "The stone's gone. Maybe it's better that way."

Scully stood, staring at the two men. They'd obviously been in some kind of fight. They were both bruised and grimy, and Iolaus was bleeding from a deep cut at the hairline. "You're safe," she marveled, moving towards him.

00:03.10

Nicholas Kritz, who no longer had any desire to be Kritias of Arcadia, stood unsteadily. "What do you mean the stone is gone? It can't be gone. You just had it!"

"Sorry," Hercules said. "You're going to have to find a new game."

The man's face contorted with rage and hatred. "You bastards have trapped me here forever!"

Iolaus snorted in disbelief. "If the thing means so much to you, it's right on the other side of that portal. But you'd better hurry. You've got a lot of competition."

Kritias reached into the billowing sleeve of his robe. "There's got to be enough time," he raged as he pulled a Browning semi-automatic pistol up to aim at the men who had destroyed his dream. "I always have a backup plan."

"No!" cried Scully. "You don't have to do that! We can all go home!" She moved towards him and his hand came up to fire. Fast as thought, Iolaus pushed her out of harm's way, just as the gun went off with an incredible roar. The bullet caught him high in the left side and he doubled over with the force of the blow, a look of sheer astonishment in his eyes.

"Iolaus!" Hercules cried, running to catch his friend as the smaller man's knees buckled.

Kritias spared them one last spiteful glare and ran into the red portal.

00:01:30

The air was dark and heavy with the smell of smoke and blood. Kritz ignored the clutch of men at the mouth of the alley. They were busy tending to their dead and wounded companions. The stone had to be nearby. It had to be! Iolaus had said it was just on the other side... He fell to his hands and knees and scrabbled about in the dirt, feeling for the stone that was his only hope of going home.

00:00:45

His hand closed over the stone and he cried out in triumph. But before he could gather his thoughts, he heard someone approaching. The man's face twisted into a snarl.

"Here's another stranger!" he called. "And he's brought us a present."

00:00:10

He clutched the Eye of Chronos to his heart. "No! It's mine, damn you!" he shouted, even as he closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the location of home.

The other man raised his club high, but the blow never fell.

The last words Nicholas Kritz heard brought with them a terrible and ironic realization as his assailant growled, "Welcome to Gomorrah."

00:00:00

Part VII - " ... in the darkest part of the night"

Hercules caught his friend and gently lowered him to the floor, where he sat with the wounded hunter cradled in his arms. Iolaus struggled to sit upright, looking wildly around the room with eyes that were curiously unfocused. "Herc?" he asked in a small, uncertain voice.

"I'm right here, Iolaus. I've got you. You'll be all right." The big man tried to keep his breathing slow and even. He couldn't let Iolaus see or hear the terrible fear that pounded in his chest like a war drum.

"It's okay, Herc," the hunter gasped between labored breaths. "... doesn't hurt much. Just kinda... pounds..."

Scully knelt beside them, checking Iolaus' pulse. It was fairly strong, but very fast. Blood seeped in a steady trickle from beneath the hands he'd clasped instinctively to the wound and she gently tried to ease them away, but he resisted in confusion. "Let me see, Iolaus," she said soft, firm voice. "It's me, Scully. I'm a doctor. Remember? You have to let me look so I can help."

He looked deep into her eyes, as though he'd never seen her before, but finally he relaxed a bit and smiled. "You're still here..." he whispered.

"I'm still here," she nodded, trying to return the smile. "And so are you. Let's keep it that way. Okay?"

Hercules took his friend's bloody hands in one of his own. "Let the lady do her job." Iolaus nodded and started to say something, but at Scully's first touch to his wounded side his breath caught in a gasp and he fell limp in his friend's arms.

"He's only fainted," Scully reassured Hercules and herself. "It's just as well; this is going to hurt." She prodded gently at the steadily bleeding wound and shook her head, then felt along his back for an exit wound. There wasn't one, but there were two suspiciously hard and jagged lumps between his lower ribs. The slug had almost gone through, but it had fragmented.

She sighed in disappointment. This wasn't turning out to be anyone's lucky day. After her brief examination, she reached into the cloth bag she'd carried from home and brought out a wrapped mini-pad and a bottle of Betadine. When she had the wound covered in a reasonably clean dressing she finally looked up at Hercules and saw the tears that coursed freely down the big man's cheeks, cutting through the grime of the day's last fight.

She realized then that he held out no hope for his friend's survival, and he had a lifetime of experience to confirm that sad belief; deep abdominal wounds had nearly always been lethal in the days before modern surgery and antibiotics. She laid a gently hand on Hercules' arm. "He doesn't have to die," she told him steadily. "In my time this would only put him out of action for a few weeks. I know you didn't think much of my world. But if you let me take him back there just for a little while I really believe he'll recover. We have gotten a few things right, and medicine's one of them."

"But the Eye of Chronos is gone." He looked back to where the red time portal had been only a moment before.

"I know," she said, reaching up to wipe the tears off his cheek. "But Chronos gave us another way back... and a way to send him home to you once he's strong enough."

"Then go," he said, carefully getting out from under Iolaus. "I'll search the castle and make sure anything Kritias brought from your time is disposed of. And I'll wait here... for as long as it takes."

Scully drew him into a tight hug. "I'll send him back well. I promise." The big man looked so damned miserable. "Unless you want me to keep him," she finished as lightly as she could.

He looked at her sharply and saw that she was joking.

Scully blushed in spite of herself. "It's okay. My mother wouldn't let me, anyway. Come on, Mulder," she said. "I think we'd better be really close when I use this thing."

Mulder joined them and reached out a hand to Hercules, adjusting quickly when the demigod took his forearm in the traditional warrior's shake. "Good-bye, Hercules," he said as Scully clasped the blue pendant that hung around her neck and they faded away like a mist.

********

"You're a genius, Scully!" Mulder crowed as he looked around. They were at the Emergency Room entrance of a small, high-tech hospital he'd been carried into several times, himself. It was a place, he knew, that the Bureau used for patients it wanted kept in deep secrecy. It was dark outside, probably well after midnight since there was no one to be seen. He kissed his partner on the cheek and ran inside to get help.

********

Ares slouched in an expensive leather recliner in his town house. It was late night, and the city outside slept. Aphrodite had come to him earlier and told him what had happened, how his plan had fallen through, and the Eye of Chronos had made a full circle. He sighed deeply, pondering the glory that might have been, and the glory that had once been.

"It isn't fair," he'd told her. "I was god of war when wars were something that could be won, when they made nations instead of destroyed them... What these idiots call war is beneath my dignity." He'd sighed. "It could have been... magnificent."

The blonde goddess had just shaken her head and kissed him on the cheek. "War's never been as grand as it was cracked up to be," she'd said philosophically. "We can't bring the old ways back. No matter how much we might want to. The Holy Greek Empire never was, babe. Get over it. We adjust or we vanish. Maybe the next millennium or two will be better."

********

"You're all set, Mulder." Langley beamed at him, as he always did when he'd finished something in two hours that a bureaucrat couldn't manage in a week. Mulder looked through the folder he'd been handed. It was all there: insurance, Social Security, employment information, DMV records, the whole fabricated past of a non-existent citizen of the twentieth century named Iolaus Kyriakides.

"You handled the police report and the Bureau paper work?" Mulder knew he didn't have to ask, but he wanted to let the best computer hacker in Washington gloat a bit.

"No problemo. Especially since your guy's in a witness protection program. Get me a photo with his eyes open and he can have a driver's license when he gets out of the hospital."

Mulder closed the folder with a forced grin. "Thanks, Langley. The idea of this guy driving in Washington is pretty scary, even to me." His bleak look told the story. "I kind of doubt that he'll need it, amyway."

"Not doing so good, huh?"

"Nah. Not so good," Mulder echoed.

********

Dana Scully sat in the dimly lit room. It was as dark as any hospital room was ever allowed to be, and quieter than most. Iolaus lay on his side, still in the deep unconsciousness of strong sedatives and serious illness.

He'd awakened a few hours after surgery, and it had been a disaster. He'd been disoriented and frightened, and had fought off two orderlies who'd tried to restrain him. He'd no longer seemed to be able to understand the language the men spoke when they tried to reassure him. Scully had reached him as quickly as she could, and he'd known her, but when he'd tried to talk to her, she'd realized the truth. His words were in his own language, in the country dialect of Thebes, in Boeotia, a tongue that hadn't been spoken in more than a thousand years. The eyes that had met hers when she'd tried to quiet him had brimmed with despair and confusion before he'd passed out from pain and shock.

She knew then that they had only been able to understand one another's speech before through the powers of the Eye of Chronos. It made sense, once she'd calmed down enough to think about it. The eyes of time saw all and understood all. The blue pendant had brought them through time, but it had no other powers.

She'd had him moved out of the bright, busy, intimidating ICU unit and placed in a private room where there were no strange instruments or flashing lights or strange electronic sounds. But he hadn't awakened again, and now she feared he never would..

Infection had set in after he'd torn the surgical wound open in his struggles to escape. And now, two days later, he was slowly shutting down. Every time she checked his vitals they were subtly worse, and his fever climbed despite massive doses of antibiotics.

His physician still declined to say that his patient was dying, but each time he checked in, his round Indian face was less hopeful. "We will be seeing soon what will be the outcome," he'd said earlier in the evening.

It was after one when Mulder crept into the room.

"Any change?" he whispered. She only shook her head slightly.

He squeezed her hand and sat down beside her. Mulder hated to see her that way, hated the idea that the gallant little blond warrior had almost certainly sacrificed his life to save them, though he suspected Iolaus would have said it had been worth even that steep price.

"Skinner asked about you again," he told her. She'd now missed three days of work with "some bug she'd picked up when they were out of town." "He reminded me that he's waiting for your report."

The flu excuse would last the rest of the week. Then maybe she'd cash in some of her vacation time. She'd need it, Mulder thought. She was pale, and the delicate skin beneath her eyes was bruised with exhaustion. She hadn't looked so bad since she'd been fighting cancer, and he was worried about her.

"Why don't you go home for a while, Scully?" He suggested. "I'll stay with him. You're just making yourself sick..."

"I can't... If he woke up while I was gone..."

He pulled her into a comforting embrace and kissed the top of her head before he ruffled her hair affectionately. "I know."

"I have to stay, Mulder," she said into his shoulder. "I have to be here... when the night's so dark... Because when it's dark, you need someone there to keep you from slipping away..."

He knew she was gearing up for an explanation, and he waited.

"You know, when I was in junior high, Missy and I had a horse for a little while when Daddy was stationed near San Francisco. Stormy Weather. We boarded him at a little place in the hills outside Lafayette. He wasn't anything fancy, just an old bay gelding we picked up for a few hundred dollars. But you know how little girls are with horses. To Missy and me he was Fury, and Smokey, and My Friend Flicka all rolled into one.

"We'd only had him for a few months when he got sick. Colic. The vet said we had to keep him on his feet and walk him around, because if he got down on the ground and rolled around he'd die. It seemed like he was getting better, but we didn't know much about horses. We were going to stay with him all night just to talk to him and make sure he'd be all right. Mom went along with it, but my dad came out about two in the morning and made us come home with him.

"When we got back out to the stables he was gone. He died in the night, all by himself. And you know, Mulder, part of me has always believed that if we'd only stayed there and been with him, he could have lived. But when he came to the darkest part of the night, he was all alone and he couldn't face it.

She waved away Mulder's sympathetic expression. "I know, I know... Stormy was just a horse and this is an intelligent, rational human being, and there's no real comparison. But it feels the same... and... and I have to stay, so that when the darkest part of the night comes, Iolaus won't be alone."

Mulder patted her hand. "I know. And I know how little red-haired girls are with heroes. I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Thank you, Mulder," she whispered as she watched him go out the door.

She turned back to the still figure on the bed. His face was flushed with fever. His temperature was 104degrees, still dangerously high, and his breathing sounded like fluid was starting to build up in his lungs. She checked the bandages and drainage tube and adjusted the pillows that kept him from rolling onto his stomach or back. The antibiotic IV and saline drip wouldn't need changing for hours. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

She pulled the uncomfortable chair as close to the side of the bed as possible and positioned it so he'd see her immediately if he woke and know that he wasn't alone. Then she kissed his burning forehead and sat beside him, holding his limp, hot hand in her own. After a while her head nodded forward and she slept in spite of herself.

She never woke when a tiny flicker of white light heralded Ares' arrival on the other side of the bed. She never saw the surly god's face soften ever so slightly as he reached out and rested an uncharacteristically gentle hand on the bandages on Iolaus' side. He felt the fragile mortal body struggling to survive, though it was on the edge of giving up, and knew that the tiniest push could send it either way.

"I lied, you know," the erstwhile god of war said softly, knowing that no one heard. "I didn't laugh at your funeral. You were always a worthy opponent and I respected that. There were never many like you or Hercules. If I didn't recognize that back then, I do now... But, DAMN, you pissed me off." A warm glow spread from beneath his hand for the briefest of moments. He stood silently for a moment, watching as the unconscious man's breathing deepened slightly and the lines of stress and pain on his face subtly eased. A tiny, almost wistful smile fleetingly crossed the god's dour face, and he vanished as quickly and silently as he'd come.

When he was gone, a faint pink glow in the corner of the room solidified into the goddess of love. "You old softie," she said appreciatively. "Awesome. I don't think I'll even tease you about this one." Aphrodite moved silently to stand beside Scully and Iolaus and stretched her elegantly manicured hands out over their heads. A soft shower of powdery sparks glowed over them. "Have a few grins before you go home, Curly. Time isn't the only universal language."

Hercules sat on the stone rim of the well in the castle courtyard. He'd searched every chamber, known and secret, in the ancient structure, and had gathered an impressive collection of twentieth century artifacts: drugs and potions, and two more weapons of the sort with which Kritias had wounded Iolaus. He'd taken great satisfaction in twisting them into unrecognizable lumps of metal. There were clothes, and sealed metal cylinders decorated with pictures of food, and a hundred items whose uses he could only guess at. Now they were all piled in the center of the courtyard, waiting for destruction.

********

He waited until the sun was low in the west before he poured lamp oil over the pile and lit it with a torch. No one would approach Kritias' castle at night, at least not until they knew he was truly gone. Maybe tomorrow he'd ask in the village, try to locate the dead king's son. Or maybe he'd wait a few more days. He wanted with all his heart to believe Iolaus would return, and he needed to be there when his friend came back.

Scully woke to the feeling of someone stroking her hair and realized she'd been sleeping with her head on the bed. Her back was never going to forgive her for that move. The room was still dim, but when she raised her head, she looked into eyes she knew were the clearest blue-grey on earth. Iolaus didn't raise his head from the pillow, but he was awake and alert.

"I didn't mean to wake you," he whispered hoarsely, "But I'm all tubes and needles, and stuff."

She reached out to stroke his cheek. He was still feverish, but not nearly as hot as he'd been earlier. "I can understand you again..." she marveled.

"Yeah. I know. Cool, isn't it? I guess I kind of freaked out earlier. Um... that did happen, didn't it? I've been having some really crazy dreams. Once I even thought Ares was here." He giggled at her dubious expression, then hissed in pain at that tiny effort. "Hoo... Bad idea. Really bad idea."

"Let me get a nurse," she said. "We can take care of that."

He caught her hand. "No, wait. Tell me. Did we do it? Did we stop him?"

"Yeah," she answered. "This time the good guys won."

********

Scully watched him walk across the mall courtyard juggling two jumbo soft drinks and a couple of mustard-dripping brats. They'd finally released him from the hospital a week ago. He was still a little pale, a bit thinner than he had been, and he still walked with the faintest trace of a limp when he was tired, but that was getting better every day. He saw her looking and flashed that heartbreaking smile and hurried his pace a bit. Scully grinned fondly as she saw him pass two high school girls who were doing their best to radiate the ultimate cool.

"Whoa," she heard one of them say.

"Awesome," the other agreed. "Who says old dudes can't be cute?"

She reached out and took her half of the sinful lunch. "Another conquest," she said, nodding towards the girls.

"Hey," he said with a leer, "It's my fatal charm." But he couldn't hold the smile for long. He wore the unmistakable look of a man who was working up to say goodbye.

The past few days had been one of the sweetest times of her life, made more precious by the sure and certain knowledge that it had to end soon. She would miss waking up next to him, miss his outrageously bad jokes and his silly giggle, miss the comforting strength of him and his almost child-like sense of wonder.

"It's time, isn't it?" she asked.

He sighed deeply. "Yeah. Chronos was right. As much as I want to stay with you, I belong in my own time. And I'd take you back with me in a heartbeat, but..."

"I belong here," she finished, and he nodded. "Will you stay tonight?"

He brightened the mood with his laughter. "Sure. I've gotta say goodbye to Mulder, too, you know. And I couldn't leave without another one of those bubble baths."

They ate in silence, savoring each other's company and left walking hand in hand. The day was clear and cold, but there was the faintest tinge of warmth in the breeze.

"I wish you could have stayed for spring," Scully told him as they headed for the car. "Even Washington's beautiful in the springtime."

"It looks pretty good now, if you ask me," he said, squeezing her hand.

And then tears were leaking down her face in spite of her best efforts. "I'll never know what happens to you..." she sniffed. "You'll just be... gone... and I'll never know."

"Sure you will. Hey, I'm a legendary hero. Surely somebody wrote something about me that was true."

She looked away. This wasn't working well. "Okay..." he said, " I'll... I'll leave something for you. When I'm really old, and I've got fifteen grandchildren... I'll leave something for you. And if it's meant to be, maybe you'll find it."

"Maybe I will," she finally said.

********

Hercules was getting restless. He'd helped the Arcadian farmers till their fields and plant their crops. He'd seen the new king crowned and begin building his new castle. The legacy of Kritias was too strong here; best to leave this keep to its ghosts. But Hercules stayed, waiting for Iolaus.

The summer sun was hot, and he welcomed the cool shadows of the room where he'd last seen his friend. Sometimes he wondered where Kritias and his infernal device had ended up, but he eventually reconciled himself to the idea that things had worked out the way they were supposed to. Most things.

He sat in the lonely, cavernous room, nursing a cup of wine, watching the fire dying in the hearth, wishing he was sleepy. Later, he was never sure what it was that caught his attention, perhaps a tiny change in the air pressure, a nearly inaudible sound, an odd whiff of ozone. Whatever it was, it made him look up, and just at the edge of the firelight's reach stood a small, familiar figure. He leapt to his feet, and the wooden mug hit the floor and rolled. "Iolaus?"

There was no mistaking the flash of that smile. "Herc!" his friend cried.

"You look great!" the demigod exclaimed, when he pulled out from the bear hug he'd wrapped around his friend. "You're okay? I mean, really okay?"

"Really. Oh, you know, for a while I thought I was gonna have to start wearing a shirt, but the scar's not too bad." He pulled his purple jerkin back to show off the thin, pink line under his ribs. "See, they do good work! Say, have you got anything to eat? Is it too late to go down to the inn? I'm really hungry for some roast pheasant... And maybe some good fresh bread. They don't have much fresh food there in Washington. But they DO have this great stuff called pizza. It's like a flat loaf with sauce and cheese, and..." He stopped, seeing his friend's amused expression. "I guess I'm babbling again, huh?"

"Yeah. You are. But don't stop." He draped an arm over Iolaus' shoulder as they headed out for the inn, listening more to the welcome sound of the blond man's voice than anything he was actually saying. It was sweeter in his ears than the sound of a lyre, and he would gladly listen late into the night.

Epilogue

The old man sat comfortably in the warm morning sunshine outside his front door. The sweet laughter of his grandchildren drifted up from the meadow and the tantalizing scent of baking bread wafted from the kitchen. He dozed from time to time, but when he was awake he worked with a sharp awl, etching deep scratches on the flat backside of a green stone talisman. His hands were remarkably steady for someone of his advanced age, but they ached a bit now with the day's efforts. Still, it was a welcome pain.

"What are you doing?" his wife asked from the doorway. Her cheeks were red from the heat of the oven and her white hair escaped the knot atop her head like dandelion fluff.

He smiled up at her and her heart swelled. He was still a handsome devil. "Just leaving a message for an old friend," he answered. "Someone I knew a long time ago."

She squinted at the stone. "That's an odd message. What does it say?" When he told her she tilted her head in curiosity. "It's still strange. Come inside, won't you? It will be too warm for you out here soon. Besides, I feel a nap coming on and you know I don't like to sleep alone."

"I'll be right in," he said, hanging the pendant back around his neck. " I'm finished now."

********

Dana Scully paused in front of the antique shop window. Something had caught her eye as she passed by on her way back from lunch. Odd. She must have walked by the place a hundred times and never noticed the small jewelry display.

"It can't be," she whispered when she realized what she was looking at. She stared at it for a full minute, weighing the pros and cons; it couldn't be the same piece. But it was. She'd have bet her career on that. She was going to be late getting back, but she had to know.

"Can I help you?" the old fellow behind the sales counter asked.

"Yes. That green stone pendant in the window. I want it."

"The green one... oh, yes. You know, we've had that for years and no one's ever asked about it, though it's a lovely piece." He fetched it from its perch and handed it to her. There was no doubt now that she could feel it. The carving was nearly smooth, worn down by the centuries. "It's Mediterranean, I believe. Quite ancient. Ordinarily, I'd ask a thousand or twelve hundred for it. But it's telling me to sell it to you for $750."

Scully never hesitated. "It's Greek," she said softly. VISA was going to love her again this month.

"Would you like me to package it for you, Ma'am?"

She hadn't taken her eyes off of it except to sign the charge slip. "No. I want to hold it."

Back out in the sunlight, she turned it over for the first time. It had been polished by centuries, but the smooth, flat finish on the back of the stone bore faint scratches. When she held it at an angle in the strong afternoon sun, she could see that they formed a single word.

Sudden tears blurred her vision as she started walking, holding the talisman to her heart. Iolaus had marked his stone with the one word that would have convinced her: "SCULLY".

She quickened her pace, eager now to get to the office. Mulder would be waiting and she had something wonderful to show him.

December 27, 1997 - September 4, 1998

Revised September 22, 1998



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