It was bright back in the twenty-first century. The sun was shining, and the feel of it on his skin seemed to Cutter to be the finest thing in the world. All the same, there was a heaviness inside him that he knew no amount of warmth could entirely dispel. Abby ran over to give him a quick, impulsive hug, and he returned it along with a genuine, if distant, smile.

"Hello there Abby."

"Is everything all right?" she asked. "One of the soldiers was hurt...?"

"He's okay. A broken leg." The professor summoned a more cheerful expression. "He and Stephen went up against a Quetzalcoatlus."

"Is that bad?" she asked. He laughed.

"Ask Connor. And speaking of which..."

"Oh, he's fine. Strangely excited about having been almost trampled by a herd of Triceratops, and sulking that he can't blog about it." She smiled. "He's still stuck in hospital, actually. He wasn't allowed to drive himself home, and we've all been here."

"Go to him." Cutter glanced back at Stephen, who was standing with a group of the soldiers. Smoky was the centre of attention, gesturing every so often at the young scientist, and no doubt telling some tall tale. "You've got your car?"

"Yes. You're sure you don't need any help here?"

"There's nothing for me to do now. It's the soldiers' job to tidy up, and wait for the anomaly to fade." He smiled, seeing that her eyes too were straying to Stephen. "Thank you for waiting here for us. We appreciate it. Both of us do."

"I was hardly going to go off and leave you, was I." She reached out for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze. "I'm just glad that you're all right. All of you."

"So am I." He looked down at her, eyes crinkling in the corners as he smiled his first proper smile since returning. "Go on, clear off out of here. Get yourself a proper meal, and liberate that poor boy. I'll pass on your good wishes to Stephen."

"Thanks. I should be getting back to Rex, too. He'll be all lonely." Her eyes drifted one last time to Stephen, a faint trace of regret showing in the back of them, then she smiled and turned to leave. Cutter watched her as she went back up out of the valley, following the path that they had taken earlier, when they had come down to gaze at the Triceratops herd. He smiled at the memory, then turned back to see where his assistant had got to. Stephen was still with the soldiers, the little gaggle of men looking more orderly now as Ryan went over to join them.

"Winchester is on his way to hospital," the captain announced as he arrived. "You're welcome to visit, but please go in small groups. I don't want any more scrums in hospital corridors. I wind up getting phone calls from irate nurses."

"I think I'd quite like an irate nurse," piped up a young soldier. There was a rowdy chorus of approval from the others, and Ryan held up a hand for silence.

"All right, all right. That's enough of that. We've still got work to do." He looked over at Stephen. "Listen, we have some things to do here yet, but we'll be going to the pub later. There's a little one not far from here. You're welcome to join us. I reckon the boys would like it."

"Thanks." Stephen sounded as though he meant it. "If you don't mind, though, I'd better take a rain check. Term starts again on Monday, and Cutter and I seem to have spent the entire summer chasing dinosaurs around the Home Counties. You have no idea how much paperwork we need to get done."

"Fair enough," Ryan told him. "I meant what I said back there, though. About you joining us for some exercises."

"Sure." Stephen nodded in understanding. "I've always got my phone on me. When Cutter hasn't stolen it to take photographs of things, anyway." He handed over his borrowed rifle. "There you go. I don't think the university would like it much if I kept this."

"Probably not a good idea, no." Ryan smiled. "See you around, then. Probably sooner rather than later." He raised his voice to be sure to include Cutter in the conversation. "Try to stay out of trouble in the meantime."

"We'll do our best, captain," Cutter assured him. Stephen smiled, going over to join his old friend, and shedding Ryanosaurus feathers all the way. Cutter eyed the corpse ruefully.

"We need to get that thing on ice before it decomposes any further. As it is we're going to have feathers all over the blasted car."

"It'll be all right." Stephen climbed into the back of the Hilux, wrapping the dead dinosaur in a sheet of tarpaulin. "We can stick it in your fridge overnight."

"My fridge?"

"We can't exactly store it at the university, can we. And my fridge is hardly going to be big enough."

"Sometimes I hate your logic." They shared a smile, before Cutter glanced back towards the soldiers. "Listen, I can manage, you know. Might do you some good to go out for a drink."

"No. Not today. Besides, you're half asleep, and no way do I trust you to drive just at the moment." Jumping down from the back of the car, Stephen pulled open the driver's door, climbing into the cabin. "Saddle up. Come on, I'll do the paperwork, and you can sort those photographs out. You'd better have got some good shots of that T rex. Goodness knows we were close enough to it."

"I was hardly thinking about photography at the time." Cutter's eyes widened slightly. "Bloody hell, Stephen. We were so close, I swear I saw its throat muscles twitch."

"Yeah." Stephen's tone of voice turned somewhat sheepish. "I think we could both do with a holiday after that little adventure."

"Amen to that." Going around to the passenger door, Cutter cast one last look back at the anomaly. It looked so quiet and beautiful, so bright and alluring. It was strange to think that on the other side of it an entire world was coming to an end - and here was he thinking about a new term at the university, and a new crowd of freshers to clutter up the corridors. He climbed up to sit beside Stephen.

"Oh, screw the paperwork," he said, as he buckled up his seatbelt. "Let's just go and crack open that whisky."

"There is quite a lot of it," said Stephen with some amusement, and switched on the engine, beginning to coast the big vehicle away towards the road. Cutter smiled.

"Yes," he said, after a moment's reflection, eyes drawn to the sparkle of golden light in the rear-view mirror. "But we've got a lot of old friends to drink to."

THE END