Chapter Four

Lance kicked his covers off and sat up in bed. He stretched. He was feeling a little better now and found that he was very, very hungry. It was four in the afternoon, and he had missed breakfast and lunch. He moved to stand but a wave of dizziness overcame him and he flopped back down to his pillows. His hand flopped around on top of his night table as he searched for his communicator. Finding it, he flicked it on with his thumb.

"Commander Keith Knight," he said, his voice hoarse. He waited for the tell-tale click, signalling that Keith was on the line. "Keith, I'm not feeling too good."

"Do you want me to send Doctor Gorma over?" Keith asked, sounding worried.

"Yeah and tell him to bring me some food since he's on his way."

"I'll bring you down something. Even Nanny is getting worried. I'm sure she'll be more than happy to heat up some roast beef and mashed potatoes for you."

At the sound of the menu, Lance suddenly felt nauseous. He put a hand on his mouth and concentrated on calming his rolling stomach.

"You still there, Lance?"

"Yeah...uh, I think chicken noodle soup will tide me over," he said. That didn't make me want to throw up...it should be fine.

"Alright. Give me a few minutes. Keith out."

Lance dropped the communicator somewhere on his floor and grabbed his sheets. He felt cold again. He was burrowed under his covers when Keith and Doctor Gorma arrived. Keith had a bowl of soup in his hands as promised, as well as a glass of water.

"Lance?" he called out in a whisper.

HIs friend opened his eyes and sat up. Doctor Gorma flicked on the lights, causing Lance to grimace slightly. Keith dragged an armchair to his bedside and Gorma sat in it. He began to check over Lance's vital signs as Keith placed the bowl on the night table.

"How long have you been feeling like this, Lieutenant?" Gorma asked, his smooth baritone soothing.

"Since this morning," Lance replied, taking a spoonful of soup. "I felt fine when I woke up, but after about half an hour, I felt tired and I went to get some shuteye. It got worse after that."

Keith stood next to the doctor, his arms crossed and a distraught expression on his handsome face. "Do you know what's wrong with him, Doctor?"

Doctor Gorma shook his head, baffled. "I can't explain it, Commander. He has the symptoms of a flu bug, but his vital signs give no indication of it. What I did find was a slower metabolic rate than what is normal for him. I also found other indications that..." He shook his head again. "It's as if his body is breaking down."

"Into what?" Lance exclaimed.

"I have no idea. But I think we should get you to the medwing and run more tests."

Lance put his feet on the ground and stood. He wavered, his eyes glazed over. Keith grabbed him and steadied him. Lance leaned on him all the way to the medwing.

Keith went back to Castle Control, a furrow between his eyebrows. He barely acknowledged the others in the room as he made his way to the main control panel. There, Coran, Allura, Pidge, and Hunk had gathered.

"Is he alright?" Allura asked, looking as worried as he.

"We don't know. Something strange is going on here," Keith said. "The appearance of these FBI agents and then with Lance getting sick with some unknown disease is too big a coincidence to ignore. I think it's time you speak with them, Allura."

"I think so, too. I'm taking Nanny with me."

Coran nodded. The others looked unsure as to why she would want to do that.

"She's the expert," Allura explained. "There was a reason my parents wanted her to be around, you know."

"When can we meet them?" Pidge asked. "I want to ask them about their work. From what I've heard, they ran into some pretty strange things."

"Later, Pidge," Keith answered, distracted. "But remember that when you do, you are not to mention anything beyond the time frame they left. Especially..."

"I know, I know," Pidge said. "I heard you the first three or four times."

"Get going," Keith said. "A lot of work has to be done if we're to get to the bottom of this."

"Aye-aye," Hunk said.

Scully tucked her short russet hair behind her ears and zipped up her jumpsuit the rest of the way. It was pretty comfortable, she decided. She expected the dark gray jumpsuit, the same kind as Commander Knight and the others wore, to be too warm to wear since it had an accompanying white turtleneck to wear underneath. She found that the fabric was light. It was a lot more comfortable than the suits she was used to. Her small gold cross glistened in the light as she adjusted it. She rolled up her sleeves as she walked out of the bedroom.

Mulder was sitting on the couch. He had already changed and was now watching the scenery outside their window. They had been shocked when the scenes suddenly changed after Scully accidentally touched a button on the coffee table, but then they realized that their "window" was like a TV. The scene was now of outer space. In the distance was Earth.

"It's from a camera on Luna, the moon base," Mulder said, without turning his head. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"Feeling homesick?" she questioned kindly.

"A little," he replied, sounding surprised. "It's not as if I left anything important there."

He looked at her, a dimuniutive figure with flaming red hair and a smile he wished he saw more often. In the beginning, she had laughed and her smiles were easy in coming. Now, he did all he could to see even just a small one, but it hardly ever worked. He was staring unabashedly at her, and there was something in his eyes that made her flush slightly. She looked away. He looked back at the planet he called home.

"So what do we do now?" she said. "Any theories?"

Before he could answer, the door chime interrupted them. Scully got up and opened the door with a push of a button. The Princess and a stout older woman stood at the doorway. The other woman had a white bonnet on top of her chestnut brown hair, and her blue frock had an apron draped on the front of it. She looked like the quintessential nanny.

"May we come in?" Allura asked politely.

"Of course," Scully replied, moving aside to let them in.

Mulder stood and offered them seats. Allura and the woman sat on the couch. The agents took the armchairs.

"This is Nanny," Allura said. "She doesn't speak English, but I'll translate for her. She might be able to tell us how you got here."

Nanny said something to Allura in a tongue that sounded melodic. The Princess nodded and then turned to the agents.

"Just explain what you were doing before you were brought here and then what happened to you physically as you were being brought here."

"Like Scully said, we were in our office," Mulder said. "I was getting her coffee and she was sitting at her desk. Next thing we knew, we were in the middle of the field, in the center of a stone structure..."

"A stone structure," Allura said, snapping her fingers. "The Sh'ama Stones. The Calion men said you were found near the stones. I didn't know you were in the center of them. Continue with what you were saying please."

"That was it really," Scully said. "We were looking as if we were still in the middle of the tasks we had begun in our office, but that was pretty much it."

Allura relayed all this information to Nanny. She nodded in several parts and then when Allura was finished, she looked pensive. She and the Princess traded some words before Allura turned back to the agents, looking perplexed.

"Thank you," she said. "Nanny and I have to do some digging in the Royal Archives. We'll get back to you as soon as we can."

They stood and left the room without another word, their heads close together as they conversed. Scully and Mulder looked at each other.

"I hope they find what they're looking for," Mulder said.

"That was a quick dismissal," Scully commented. "She's a pro."

"She's a politician."

Scully stood and went to the food replicator. "Hungry, Mulder?"

"Yeah, a little. Think you can whip up some Chinese food?"

"I'll try. I don't think I broke my finger since I left that armchair."

She punched in their selections using the keypad on the food replicator, the small screen next to it giving her prompts. Within minutes, their food materialized with chopsticks to boot. Mulder helped her bring it all over to the coffee table and they ate.

"Scully, aren't you the least bit curious as to what will happen..." He paused. "Rather what happened to us?" he finished.

"Who wouldn't be?" she replied. She looked up at him with a suspicious look on her face. "Don't even think about it, Mulder. We aren't supposed to know what'll happen to us because then history will change. Then who knows what will happen. It'll be a mess."

"History has already been changed. We're here aren't we?"

"We don't have to damage it anymore than it already is."

"Aw come on, Scully. What if we don't make it back anyway..."

The look she threw him this time was sharp. He recoiled.

"Alright, alright."

They lapsed into silence.

"And don't even think about trying to find out about yourself without me knowing," she warned.

He looked like the kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Scully shook her chopsticks at him.

"I'm serious, Mulder. We are to treat this seriously. I don't care how long the Bureau has been nonexistent, we are still FBI."

"I won't make any promises," he said. "But for now I'll keep out of the database."

"Good."

They went back to eating and Scully made a mental note to ask Commander Knight how to block any searches concerning them. The temptation to take a peek was too great. She could trust Mulder to keep away from the computer, but she wasn't so sure if she could trust herself.

"How about if we snoop on our hosts?" Mulder suggested.

She raised an eyebrow. "Fine. You just want to play with the computer."

He grinned. "Maybe just a little."

Allura sneezed as a cloud of dust hit her in the face. She had blown the dust off the enormous brown spellbook Nanny had handed her and hadn't expected it to come back at her. They had been in the archives for almost an hour, and they had found no spells concerning time travel. It was nearing dinnertime, but Nanny had made no move to ready dinner. It told Allura just how important finding that spell was.

"Why are there no spells?" she asked, frustrated. "We have everything from spells to make people fall in love, to turning flowers into people, but no time travel spells."

"It is too dangerous," Nanny answered. "No one would want to write one and test it out. Playing with time is not something decent Magic-holders do. Too many things could go wrong. And it is our belief that once something happens, you can't do anything to change it. You can only accept it, adapt, and move on."

"How refreshing," Allura muttered. "Are you absolutely certain no one has written any?"

Nanny stopped and looked at the Princess. "Not one hundred percent certain." She stood and wiped her hands on her apron. Her eyes took a distracted cast. "There used to be stories of forbidden books. They had spells that no living being was supposed to see. It was a long time ago that someone tried one of the spells." She pinned the Princess with a look of foreboding. "Bad things happened, my dear. Everything began to unravel."

Allura chewed on her bottom lip. "Where would we be able to find these books, Nanny?"

"There were rooms underneath the Castle a long time ago before I was born. My grandmother used to tell me stories about how apprentices went down there to study. Sometimes, the castle would shake because of what they were doing down there."

"In the tunnels?"

"I would assume so."

The Princess stood. "Keep looking here. I'm going to Castle Control to run a scan underneath the castle. I'm going to find those rooms."