Young enough to know better. Old enough not to care.

Title: Flotsam
Author: bigtitch
Word Count: 13,300
Rating: Gen
Characters/Pairing: Cutter, Elvis Harte (Our Girl), Ryan, Ditzy, OCs
Author notes: This is the sequel to Badlands. Cutter was on holiday on the Durham Coast as a way of recuperating after a bad anomaly shout left two young girls dead. That proved to be less than restful when he found himself in the middle of an SAS undercover operation targeting an organisation 'disappearing' refugees. The result of that has him in the Cretaceous with an SAS captain and three refugees. All they have to do is wait for the anomaly to return. But will it be that easy?

Big thank you to fififolle for amazing beta work and saving my blushes on many occasions.



Toot! Toot!

Cutter smiled at the sound of Naziah blowing into her whistle with enthusiasm. Omar had made it for her so she could signal for help if needed. Naziah took this responsibility very seriously and had been careful to practise it as much as possible. Elvis, in an inspired move, Cutter felt, had told her that the best time to practise was when they were out on a gathering expedition. As he explained to Cutter and Fadwa, if it annoyed the predators as much as it annoyed the adults, they'd be certain to keep away.

Toot-too-Toot!

They were heading back up the valley to where they had met the raptors, but this time they were in search of ginkgo fruit. Elvis had spotted a tree laden with it a couple of days earlier and that was too good a food source to pass up, even if it was going to be an extremely smelly job to get the seeds out of their casings.

Toot! Toot! Toot!

Cutter was taking point, with the spear in his right hand and a basket in his left. Fadwa and Omar were also carrying baskets and Naziah, of course, was acting as predator repellent. Cutter spotted the bright yellow leaves of the ginkgo tree half way up the side of a small hollow close to the river. As they got closer he could see the ground was littered with leaves and the round peach coloured nuts.

'Let's do this quickly,' Cutter told the others. 'The smell isn't going to improve by lingering around here.'

Toot! Toot! Toot! Toot!

They walked into the hollow with baskets at the ready. Cutter stood on one of the nuts and screwed up his face as the smell of vomit reached his nostrils. This was going to be grim.

'Mr Nick!' Omar was pointing towards a small shape on the ground by the trunk of the tree. It was one of the small scurriers Elvis trapped for them, but this one was unmoving. It was dead. Cutter pushed at the body with the end of his spear. He couldn't see any wound on it. Perhaps it had died of old age.

To-o-o-ot.

Naziah's whistle was faint and weak. He turned round to see her slumped on the ground. Fadwa bent towards her daughter and staggered and went down to her knees. Cutter stood for a second while his brain raced and then he realised what was going on.

'Gas! Omar pick up Naziah and hold her as high as you can!' He mimed holding his hands above his head as he raced towards them.

He reached Fadwa, grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. She looked dazed and her face was flushed. Beside him, not understanding, but obeying, Omar picked up Naziah's limp body and held her up.

'High ground! We need to get out of this hollow!'

The quickest way was the way they'd come. They retraced their steps as fast as they could manage. By the time they were back on the higher ground Fadwa was operating under her own steam and Naziah was stirring. Omar made to set her down on the ground, but Cutter stopped him.

'Wait! Let me test!'

Cutter pulled out his matchbox and quickly struck one of the precious matches. He held it down at ground level and watched the match burn until it reached his fingers and he dropped it.

'It's OK. It's safe here.'

Fadwa bent over her daughter who was starting to breathe easier. Naziah's face was flushed.

'What was that?' Fadwa said.

'I think it was carbon monoxide,' Cutter said. 'It's heavier than air, so it pools in hollows and low ground. You can't see it or smell it. But it'll kill you. Naziah walked into it over her head, but we were breathing fine until you bent down to help her.'

'But we've been here before and it's been safe.'

Cutter looked round at the smoking mountain. 'The volcano wasn't active before.'


++++
It was a sombre party back at the rock shelter when Elvis returned with the fruits of his trapping expedition.

'What happened?' he asked.

'We found a carbon monoxide sink,' Cutter said. 'Naziah nearly didn't make it.'

'Shit!' Elvis looked carefully at where Naziah was huddled against her mother's side, still clearly shaken. 'Is she OK?'

Fadwa nodded. 'I think so, but if Mr Nick hadn't seen what had happened...' She left the conclusion hanging and pulled her daughter closer only relaxing a little when Naziah squeaked a protest.

'Nice one, Nick.' Elvis looked around again. 'OK, so that's one we walked away from, why the long faces?'

'We don't know if we should stay here or not,' Omar said. 'It used to be safe, but now...'

'If the volcano is becoming active...' Fadwa said.

'We have to balance staying here or moving out,' Cutter said. 'Which could be equally dangerous.'

'And moving away from the anomaly site. Our only sure way home,' Elvis added.

'That's what's weighing on my mind the most,' Cutter said. 'If we can hold out here, we know we can get home in a matter of months.'

'How long to the next solstice?'

'Ninety-eight days,' Cutter said without even having to look at the scratches on the cave wall.

'That's a long time sitting beside a grumbling volcano.'

'We could be a longer time finding another anomaly home.'

'You have the portable anomaly finder, though?'

'Yes, but there's no way of knowing where the anomalies lead. You can end up in a worse time than this or even in the future.'

'You want to stay?' It wasn't really a question.

'If we can, yes,' Cutter said.

'What about everyone else?' Elvis looked round.

'How can we stay here,' Fadwa said, 'if there's invisible gas that can kill us before we know what's happening?'

'Where do we go?' Omar asked. 'We have learned to stay safe here. We can learn to keep away from the gas. We have to watch the little one, but we can do that. I have lived with bombs and rockets, we can live with this.'

'That's easy for you,' Fadwa said. 'You're tall!'

'Cool it!' Elvis said, trying to keep the peace. 'None of us know what the right answer is. Sometimes you just have to pick the best one out of the bad options.'

'Then we have to go!' Fadwa stood up. 'Let's eat.' She picked up the carcasses of the scurriers Elvis had been carrying and moved towards the fire.

Elvis shrugged. 'A bit of food won't do us any harm.' He rubbed his forehead. 'And maybe a night's sleep.'


++++
In the end nobody got a good night's sleep that night except Naziah. The ground didn't move, but there were odd rumbles like distant thunder throughout the night. But this wasn't thunder, these sounds were coming from the ground itself.

At first light a slow stream of animals walked through the valley. The Bagaceratops family were there as well as the ankylosaurs. Cutter saw winged dinosaurs in the sky.

'Look!' he told Elvis.

'What's happening?' Elvis asked. 'A seasonal migration?'

'So many different species? All at the same time?'

The soldier and the scientist looked at each other. They both knew what the answer was.

'Do they know something we don't?'

'This is their world. They've adapted to living with volcanos.'

'So maybe this isn't a good time to be an estate agent around here?'

Cutter snorted. 'Yesterday I was in two minds about what to do for the best. But now?' He gestured to the animals walking away from the volcano. 'I don't think we have a choice.'

'OK,' Elvis said. 'We move on. We try and find a new valley to live in and we try and come back here in three month's time to get our trip home. If it's not under a couple metres of lava by then.'

'Agreed.'

Cutter was resigned more than happy with the decision. He knew it was the right one. Waiting for the volcano to actually erupt was as much a death sentence as not moving at all. They needed to get a long way from it to be safe. He just hoped they weren't cutting themselves off from the only way home.
++++
Cutter still had time for a look back at their little cave shelter as they left the way the animals had gone. He stood for a few moments his mind racing over various possibilities of disaster now that they were leaving it. Behind it the volcano puffed out another jet of smoke and steam and he turned back to the others.

Elvis gave him a quizzical look as he caught up with them.

'I still can't shake the feeling that we're making a mistake.'

Elvis shrugged. 'Maybe we are, but you just have use the information you have available to make the best decision you can and then commit to it.'

'Is that what they teach you at Hereford?'

Another shrug from Elvis. 'Pretty much. I certainly never met a senior sergeant who was fond of dithering, that's for sure.' He glanced back at the volcano. 'Let's get some distance between us and Vesuvius over there.'

Cutter nodded and looked towards the path ahead.
++++
Elvis pushed them hard for the first handful of days, saying that if they needed to get further away from the volcano then that's what they should concentrate on. The last two days were over harsh terrain as they left the comfort and green vegetation of the river valley to climb over a hill of barren ash field and old lava that their feet sank into like sand dunes. They toiled through this landscape for hours with the men taking turns to carry Naziah. Cutter was sure they'd made a terrible mistake until he saw the green fronds of tree ferns appearing over the top of the next hill.

An hour or so later they were descending into another river valley. If Elvis felt relief he didn't show it any more than he had shown concern for the difficult terrain they had been travelling through. He put Naziah down beside the river and filled his water bottle and passed it round.

'This looks better,' Cutter said.

'Not bad,' Elvis said as he bent to refill the water bottle and take a long drink. 'Omar, you stand guard duty here, Nick and I will check it out to see who the sitting tenants are.'

Cutter was hungry and tired, but he straightened himself up, took a firmer hold on his spear and nodded his agreement. He didn't pretend that he could match the SF guys for fitness, but he had learned from them how to push himself beyond what he thought was possible. And besides, if they could prove that this was safe enough then there was the possibility of rest at the end of it.
++++
Luckily it was a fairly short reconnaissance trip. Elvis took the opportunity to set a few traps in likely places, but there didn't seem to be anything more threatening than the flash of bright feathers of primitive birds in the tree ferns. When they came back to where they had left their companions, they discovered that Fadwa was working her magic on the local fish and there were two good sized specimens already on the river bank.

Omar looked up from where he was starting a fire. 'Is good?'

'Good enough,' Elvis said. 'We'll rest up here today and then go further up the valley tomorrow.'

Cutter looked back the way they had come. The volcano itself was no longer visible, but the plume of smoke could still be seen reaching up into the sky. He just hoped that the ridge of the valley would keep them safe from any lava or pyroclastic flows.
++++
They couldn't stay in the valley in the end. The river plain was wide and flat and there were no convenient cliffs with ledges and overhangs to replace the rock shelter they had left behind. This wouldn't have been a problem for them as Elvis had found a raised beach protected on three sides by a wide meander in the river. This was as good a defensible position as they could get under the circumstances. At least if the circumstances hadn't included a herd of a dozen or more hadrosaurs. These herbivores were the dominant group in the valley, grazing up and down the river and taking no nonsense from any predators that might be stupid enough to annoy them.

Cutter didn't know if they were naturally nervous in the way of all grazing animals or if the rumbles and occasional booming sounds coming from the waking volcano were agitating them more than usual. It didn't matter, in the end. The hadrosaurs were given to charging en masse up and down the valley at the slightest provocation.

'Skittish things, aren't they?' Elvis said as they hid in a copse of tree ferns, their belongings grabbed up as they ran before yet another stampede that wiped out any shelter they had constructed by the river.

Cutter grunted, watching the herd disappear in a cloud of dust, stamping and confusion. The tree ferns granted them only psychological protection. The hadrosaurs were big enough that nothing stood in their way when they were at full speed. Trees didn't stop them, water didn't stop them, fire didn't stop them, you just had to get out of their way and hope they missed you.

'We can't stay here,' Fadwa said.

Everyone nodded.

'We stock up with food and water as much as we can and move out tomorrow,' Elvis said. He looked out over the valley to what had been their camp. 'Nice place. Shame about the neighbours.'
++++
It was part of Cutter's daily routine to check the portable anomaly detector every morning and evening to see if any anomalies had opened up near them. Nothing had ever shown up on the screen and it was more a ritual to calm his worries rather than any determined attempt to find another way home. It was typical then that they found another anomaly not by any high-tech means, but by a dinosaur wandering past them.

They were on the ash fields again. Gritty sand and ash crunched under their feet and a wind was blowing enough to fling ash and gravel at them. Omar spotted the shape first.

'Dinnersaur!'

They squinted through the dust to where a low shape was trotting towards them. The creature was about a metre long with a squat face and two fangs protruding down from its upper jaw. It got close enough to see them and moved away giving them a mournful hooting sound as though it blamed them for the bad situation.

'There's an anomaly nearby,' Cutter said, trying to find the anomaly detector in his pack while keeping the dust out of it.

'How do you know?' asked Elvis

'That's a rhynchosaur. We're in the Cretaceous and they belong to the Triassic. That thing is the best part of 200 million years out of time.' Cutter pressed a few buttons on the detector and the screen sprang to life. He pointed in a direction slightly away from where the rhynchosaur had come from. 'It's over there. Maybe a kilometre away.'

'Let's check it out,' Elvis said.

They trudged along until the sparkling shards of the anomaly appeared in the distance. The wind was blowing harder now and blasting gritty dust in their faces. It had been like that for a couple of days with no sign of a friendly river valley to take shelter in.

'Watch out for your rifle,' Cutter said as they got close. 'The magnetic field will pull on it.'

'Shit! You're right! Why didn't I notice that back on the beach?'

'Much weaker anomaly, I think. This one has been going for hours if the rhynchosaur got as far as it did when we met it.'

Elvis nodded and then stepped through the anomaly. Cutter didn't know why he was surprised. Elvis was prone to taking decisive action with minimal consultation. In this case, Cutter only had time to exchange a worried glance with Omar and Fadwa when Elvis was back again.

'It's sunny and green through there. I could hear running water. Nothing tried to eat me. I vote we go through.'

'Is that wise? How will we get home?' Omar spoke all their worries.

Cutter looked round at them. They were nearly out of water. Beneath whatever cloth they had wrapped around their faces was dry skin and chapped lips. They would not survive long as they were. But still, stepping through this anomaly was cutting their last tie to a guaranteed way home. Yet, Helen had made it. She had learned to traverse time. It was possible.

'We can find anomalies,' Cutter held up the detector. 'We can find other places and times. But if we stay here we'll die.'

'I don't think we have a choice,' Fadwa said.

Omar nodded. 'Nauzubillah. Allah protect us!'

Elvis led the way. Cutter watched them disappear through the glittering oval. He spared one look back and then followed them through. He just hoped it was the right decision.