A New World

by Wesa

Series: War of the Worlds, The Equalizer, and The X-Files. Guest appearances in future parts from characters from Due South, The Man from UNCLE, and The Pretender; perhaps from others as the whim takes me.

Standard disclaimers apply. All characters belong to their various creators and the powers that be. Some of these characters belong to Chris Carter, Fox, and 10-13 Productions. I've just invited them over to play for a while, and I promise to send them home when the party's over. Others belong to Universal or Paramount, but it doesn't look like anyone is playing with them at the moment, so I'm going to let them stay as long as they want. Littlehawk belongs to Jan Harley. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Jan, for your wonderful story. I hope you don't mind if he comes over to help chaperone the party; of course, he can come home whenever you need him. Tierney, Lainie, and Kira are mine; they live here.

Constructive criticism is welcomed.

By Wesa.

On the highest part of the cliff, overlooking the surf below, they placed evergreen boughs around the tiny body and covered her face with the zagelle skin to protect her from the rocks and dirt as they filled in the little grave. Then they carefully built a cairn over it, to make certain that no scavengers could reach her. "Goodbye, little one," Kira whispered, leaning on Paul for comfort and support. Tears still coursed down both parents' cheeks. "Mommy will come soon."

"Littlehawk will show her the way," Paul said softly.

"Littlehawk!" Kira snapped. "Always Littlehawk! Why didn't he warn us?"

"He did," Paul replied softy, "just before you went into labor. I suppose he didn't say anything before then so that we wouldn't worry over something we couldn't change."

"Our daughter is dead!" Kira screamed. She dropped to her knees beside the cairn and sobbed, beating her fists against the rocks. When Paul lifted her to her feet, she twisted away from him and started back toward their camp. He caught her and carried her, sobbing, back to the hut, while in sympathy the winter drizzle resumed.

Dana had been right to insist that Sydney should stay behind; when they returned, she was in labor, with Yvette trying to insist that the Frenchwoman stay on her feet, walking to make her labor easier. Mickey rushed to take Sydney into his arms, while Lainie and Mulder took charge of Michel, bringing him over to the area where they slept with Samantha beside them.

Paul paused for a moment beside Mickey and Sydney. "Don't worry too much," he murmured. "Littlehawk said that the other children would be healthy."

Mickey rolled his eyes and grumbled at him, but Sydney looked up gratefully. "Thank you," she panted, but Paul had already gone on, following Kira to their sleeping area.

**********

Sydney's baby came just after dawn, his mighty wails vying for dominance against the storm that had blown in around midnight. Ginger and Suzanne bathed him, Yvette wrapped him in the softened skin that Sydney had prepared for him, and they gave him to Mickey to show off.

Paul watched the other men gather around to look at Mickey's new son and congratulate the father, but he could only sit in his place beside Kira and mourn with her for their lost child. The general celebration hurt them both deeply.

"Why?" Kira whispered. "Paul, why?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Perhaps that's best. A reason, no matter how logical, would only make me angry...It's no consolation to have been shown healthy children and grandchildren, to know that all the other children born to this group will be strong. I still want our daughter." He took Kira in his arms and buried his face in her hair. He shook all over and his shoulders heaved as he silently fought to hold back his sobs.

Kira put her arms around him, holding him until he raised his head. "You hurt as much as I do," she whispered, wiping the tears from his cheeks. She gave him a faint, sad smile. "Now that Sydney's through yelling, let's try to sleep."

Paul stretched out on their bedding in immediate agreement. "I'm exhausted," he murmured, "and you're worn to a frazzle." He drew her close in his arms and Kira drew their notlion fur over them both. "Our daughter would want her mother to recover her strength," he added as she settled herself beside him.

Kira pillowed her head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. After a few minutes, she whispered, "Some tribes believe that the soul of a dead baby returns to the same family."

"I hope so," Paul murmured. "That way we will see our daughter again. She will be strong, next time," he added as he drifted off.

**********

The babies came one after another over the next week. Sydney had hardly had a night's rest when Suzanne went into labor and delivered a son after only five hours. His dark curly hair and olive skin gave no hint to the identity of his father. Two days later Tierney also had a boy. Norton looked down at him in wonder as Tierney nursed him, running a fingertip over the downy blond head. Mulder frowned at Scully and instructed her to have a girl unless she wanted him to start seeing another conspiracy. Scully told him it was too late for her to make any such decision. The next day Yvette gave birth to a boy as well, also pretty obviously of mixed ancestry, but Kincaid didn't seem to care. Finally, a week after the funeral, Scully's son was born.

Harrison held baby William and looked down at his tiny, scrunched face in wonder. "Okay," he said softly. "The red hair I understand. But how did it get paired with Asian features?"

No one could answer his question, but it made not a bit of difference to the babies' mothers that the men they loved were not the fathers of their children. Their sons were the first new life of this world, and new hope for the future. They would love and protect these boys as if they had planned for them. Their men, most of them first-time fathers, would care for the new mothers and their sons as if they had cast the seeds that engendered these sweet innocents. No one questioned it; no one even thought of doing anything differently.

The winter grew colder as the weeks passed. The meat they had smoked ran low, and rations got slimmer until only the new mothers ate for three days, just enough to keep their milk flowing. Then the meat ran out.

**********

The hunters returned, muddy and freezing, and without having made a kill. "I'm sorry," Mickey told Sydney, who looked up at him with worried eyes.

"I'm afraid I don't have enough milk," she whispered, cuddling Adam to her breast. The baby wailed, despite the nipple in his mouth.

"Papa, I'm hungry," Michel complained.

"I know," Mickey said helplessly, hugging his son to his side.

Across the sheltering hut, Kira glanced at the unhappy family beyond the fire. "I'm worried about the babies," she told Paul as he changed his breechclout and leggings for a clean, dry set. "None of our new mothers are getting enough to eat."

"Neither are you," he told her.

"But I'm just me," she replied. "Are you warm enough? I don't want you to get sick."

He took her hands in his. "You could come warm me up," he suggested.

"Why don't you bring our bedding over by the fire?" she returned. "I'm supposed to be cooking."

"Cooking what?" Paul asked. "We're out of meat."

"There's still the river reed pulp," Kira replied. "It's not as good as it was in summer and fall, but it has some calories at least." She sighed and watched Suzanne trying to convince baby Hank to suckle. "I should have tried to keep my milk flowing," she murmured. "If I had, I could try to help them."

**********

Finally the weather warmed, and the hunters once more began to bring in meat. Debi found a stand of the iron-rich bitter leaves they had learned to gather the previous autumn. After stuffing her mouth with the first handful, she gathered as many as she could and took them back to her mother, who tried to share them with the entire group.

Everyone did eat some of the leaves, but Dana pointed out that they were probably especially vitamin-rich and those women who were likely to get pregnant soon should have priority. So everyone else gave a small portion of their share to Trudy, who was sleeping with Scott McCall, or to Lainie, who already suspected she might be carrying Mulder's child.

Paul, with the emotional support of his friends, slowly healed from his loss, although there would always be an empty place in his heart where their daughter should have been. He worried about Kira, though, for as the weather warmed she sank further into depression. No longer worried about the others' babies, she dwelled more and more upon her own loss. She was not solving problems as she had previously. She became listless and helped with the food gathering only because it was expected of her.

One day when the hunters came home, Lainie and Tierney met Paul as the men came into camp, telling him that Kira was up at the gravesite, and that she wouldn't come home.

"Do you want me to go with you?" Norton asked, as Paul started up after his wife.

"She won't fight me," Paul replied worriedly. "But, Norton? - Thanks."

"Take care of her, Big Guy," Norton said, his arm comfortingly around Tierney, who stood anxiously rocking her baby in her arms.

Paul paused, looking at them, the perfect nuclear family: father, mother, and son. He and Kira and their daughter should have had that, and he felt a brief flash of jealousy before he remembered Littlehawk's promise. "I will," he said, giving his own promise to Tierney and Lainie. "I'll bring her home." Briefly he touched Noah's blond curls before he turned and hurried toward the point.

Freshly gathered flowers lay on the stone cairn, but Kira stood on the cliff edge with her back to the grave, staring out to sea. Paul froze, afraid she was going to jump.

Then she spoke. "Soon?" she asked hopefully, mournfully. It seemed to be part of a conversation. "Is she okay?" she asked after another moment.

"She speaks with Emma," Littlehawk's voice murmured in Paul's ear. "Emma loves the sister you have given her, Darkeagle. She will not allow Laughing Brook to harm herself in her despair, but you must help, too."

Paul looked at him. "How?" he asked.

"Our daughter?"

"His daughter?"

"His wife." Littlehawk seemed amused. "That is why she cannot come back to you directly, my brother. She must be the mother of the shaman who will lead your new tribe, as Red Chert will be his father."

"There was a reason, then." Paul sighed heavily. "I can't tell Kira that."

"No need. Laughing Brook will recognize her daughter when she is born again," Littlehawk assured him. "She will love her, and will be pleased at your son's good sense when he chooses his wife.

"So get out of here, and take Emma with you. Give my kid sister a hug for me."

With Littlehawk and Emma gone, Paul walked up behind Kira on the cliff. "Don't think of leaving me," he told her softly. "Littlehawk said you were talking to my sister."

Kira took an uneven breath. "I haven't been able to stop hurting since she was taken from us. I came up here to talk to her, and ... I thought ... the hurting would stop if I was with her..." She looked over her shoulder at her husband; there were tears running down her cheeks. " ... But then I wouldn't have you. I couldn't do it."

Paul put his arms around her and swung her away from the cliff edge, relieved when she clung to him. "I can't lose you, Laughing Brook," he told her, holding her tightly to his chest. He pressed his lips against her neck under her ear.

Kira threw her head back, encouraging his attentions. "Oh, Darkeagle, I've missed you!" she breathed.

"Are you ready?" he asked. "I've missed you, too, but I can wait if --"

"No!" She clung to him desperately. "Paul, I need you. Make love with me."

He glanced at the cairn. "Not here." He laid a hand on the uppermost stone. "We'll see you in a few years, Starfire," he murmured. "We love you."

"Yes," Kira agreed. She smiled up at Paul as he drew her firmly away into the woods.

**********

Spring was in full swing when the first earthquake came. Both Mickey and Norton were tossed into the river along with the fish they were netting. Fortunately they were only thrown into the shallows and not washed over the cliff into the ocean. Robert caught Suzanne as she stumbled and kept her from dropping little Hank into the fire where she was cooking the first of the fish.

A rock fell from the wall of the small house Control and Scott were building onto Scott's foot, while Yvette and Ginger supported each other in an unfinished doorway, protecting Yvette's baby, Phillipe, and Ginger's unborn child. Everywhere people fought to keep their feet, except those who weren't standing.

Just inside the edge of the woods, Mulder groaned. "I think I felt the earth move that time," he gasped.

Lainie smacked his bare shoulder, laughing. "You did, goofus," she told him. "That was an earthquake. Get off me."

"What, no cuddling?" Mulder protested for form's sake, but he moved aside.

"Get dressed," Lainie told him. "You'd better find Sam. She might be frightened. I have research to do."

"Research?" he repeated, folding his breechclout over his waistcord and straightening his leggings.

"I am a geologist," Lainie reminded him. "I should try to figure out where that came from. If this area isn't stable, we don't want to be living on the top of the cliff."

Out digging whatchadiggies from a nearby patch west of the camp, Debi and Eric were faced with calming Samantha and Michel. They hugged the children and tried to soothe them, then shoved the roots they had already dug up into the carrybag Debi had made, and headed back to camp.

Paul, Harrison, and Kincaid abandoned their hunt and ran through the woods as quickly as they could, in case anyone should need their help. Trudy, Kira, and Dana picked themselves up off the ground under the bushes from which they harvested the leaves that quelled their morning sickness. "That was different," Trudy observed, watching Dana check that William was safe in the cradleboard on her back.

"I really didn't need that," Kira said miserably. "Oh, god, I think I'm gonna puke."

Dana shoved a handful of the young leaves into Kira's mouth. "Hang onto yourself, Kira," she said. "We'd better get back to camp. Someone may need help."

Everyone arrived back at their camp area at more or less the same time, the last stragglers arriving just as the first aftershock hit. Mulder, reassuring Samantha, looked up worriedly. "Lainie? Lainie!" he shouted.

She dusted herself off as she rose. "Right here, Mulder. I'm fine." She paused briefly. "But we aren't," she added morosely.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kincaid demanded.

"We lost a good two feet off the edge with the primary quake," Lainie replied, "and look at the mountain across the bay." She pointed.

Everyone looked, even Dana, who was examining Scott's foot.

"Oh, shit," Mickey breathed as they all stared at the smoke boiling out of the top of the mountain. It poured upward like a summer thunderhead, only threatening and black rather than beautifully white and silver.

"Related to the earthquakes?" Control asked.

"Probably caused them," Lainie said. "They were shallow, close to the surface. That most likely means a magma movement."

"Are we safe here?" Eric asked.

"That might be twenty-five miles away," Lainie told them. "Mt. Saint Helens flattened a forest with 900 degree 300 mile-an-hour winds, then dumped two hundred feet of ash on top of parts of it. I can't say whether that will happen here; I have no instruments."

"But it could," Harrison pressed. Lainie nodded as ashes started drifting down around them.

Paul looked from Kira's pale face to Debi and Suzanne to Control. "We have to get out of here," he said.