Murdoch opened his eyes, or rather tried to, for you see, he was almost completely face first in some thick mud. If he had totally been, he likely would have suffocated while he was passed out.

Thank God for small mercies.

This thought was short lived as the pain from their collision was now rearing its ugly head in full force. Every part of him hurt, but none as much as his head, which took the brunt of the blow. He groaned loudly and received a mouth full of muck as his reward. Turning onto his side, he spit the vile stuff out and just lay there for a few seconds, hoping that the world would stop spinning and noticing for the first time that the rain had ceased. Then it hit him.

Julia!

He attempted to push himself into a sitting position so he could survey the area better but gasped out as agony shot through his left shoulder blade. Gingerly touching it, he found that he had dislocated it, but thankfully nothing appeared to be broken. So he used his right hand to move himself into the desired position. His jaw dropped as he looked around. What he beheld was not a pretty sight. But he supposed it wasn't much worse than he was expecting.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. There were pieces of basket shrapnel everywhere. Some of which was lodged in the upper recesses of the nearby trees. Murdoch found this strange as he had thought they had hit the ground outright. He conceded that it was possible he was wrong and maybe the tree branches did break their fall somewhat. Everything had been so hectic that it was hard to be certain. The problem with this theory was that he didn't see any broken branches anywhere amongst the other debris. So maybe they just impacted with such force that the shrapnel ended up that high? But if that was the case, wouldn't they be dead? In any case, this wasn't of much importance right now. Sometimes his inquisitive mind got the better of him at the worst possible moments. What he needed to do was focus his attention on finding Julia.

To his horror, he couldn't spot her anywhere in the vicinity.

Could she have flown that far away from the crash site?

Of course it was possible but he didn't think it likely seeing as they had been in each other's arms previous to hitting the ground.

"Julia!" he screamed. There was no response. "Juliaaa!"

Groaning again, he forced himself to stand up, using his good hand as a pivot point. He tottered a bit, (as much from the alcohol still coursing through his veins as from the pain that shot through him at that instant), put his hand to his head and leaned against a tree until his light headedness and body strain had passed. Removing his hand, he found it was covered in semi-dried blood. The sight made him uncharacteristically queasy and he puked for several seconds. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his suit and then realized what he had just done.

Oh well, it's not like a little vomit could really make it worse than it already looks.

And he was quite right. The handsome blue suit was in utter shambles. In fact, the sleeve he had just used was half falling off. As well, the entire front side was coated in mud. Only his shoes seemed to be in decent condition, which was fortunate, as he figured he was going to have to walk a ways through the forest to get back to humanity.

Scouring the area for clues of Julia's whereabouts, he began to lose hope that he would ever find her. Then he heard a noise and headed in the direction he thought the sound came from. Did his eyes deceive him? No, there was movement! Murdoch rushed over to a section of the balloon that had separated from the rest and threw it off to the side. Yes, she was alive! But unfortunately not well. There was a nasty gash on the side of her right calf. It looked very painful and he held back his tears as best he could. As far as he could tell, the injury had been caused by part of the blast valve. At least the blood had mostly ceased to flow, like his own wound.

He knelt down and caressed her face gently. It was fairly bruised and cut up and he didn't want to hurt her any more than she already was. Most likely his own face was in no better condition.

Taking one of her hands in his, he asked softy, "Julia, can you hear me?"

A short while elapsed and her eyes flickered open. Just that amount of effort seemed to tax her strength greatly.

"William," she managed to croak out, with the tiniest of smiles. He returned it with a larger one but his brow was furrowed in worry. Next she gasped as the pain from her leg began to register. She grimaced but tried to shrug it off, like it was nothing. Then another spasm overtook her and she passed out again.

"Julia!" he exclaimed in alarm.

He wanted to bandage her wound up but didn't have any clean material to use. Absolutely everything available to him was covered in filth! He knew he was going to have to get her medical attention and therefore that he'd need to be able to pick her up, which meant that he had to fix his shoulder. He removed his leather belt, wiped the crud off of it and placed it securely in his mouth. Then he bit down hard. Grabbing his left arm, he rammed it upwards. The only result was excruciating pain and a muffled scream escaping his lips. Once the agony had dissipated enough, he tried again. This time it felt ten times worse and he almost blacked out from the pain. However, after a few seconds, it vanished almost entirely and he was left with only a dull throb. It was then that he realized he had successfully gotten his arm back in the socket. Waggling his fingers happily, he extracted the belt from his mouth. He had almost bit clean through it. Nevertheless, he replaced it around his waist.

Since he had no idea where they were it didn't really matter which direction he headed out. So he picked Julia up as carefully as he could manage and just started walking.

It was difficult to traverse the forest path without tripping on all the roots, so things were very slow going. After a while, his abdomen started to hurt. He ignored it and continued on, hoping to reach shelter before night time or at least before they froze to death. Julia's teeth had started to chatter and it was then that he determined that so were his. Being drenched and then exposed to the elements wasn't the best combination, especially when the temperature had nose-dived dramatically over the last little while.

Eventually it became impossible to ignore the pain in his side and he lowered Julia gently to the ground. It was then that he discovered a rip in his shirt underneath his suit. His pocket watch had shattered and some of the glass had lodged itself into his side. Apparently he hadn't noticed it before because his other injuries had taken precedence. However, once they were out of the way, his lesser wounds were allowed to take over the pain brigade. Pulling the shards out quickly, he was pleased to feel an immediate relief. And to make matters better, there was only a small amount of blood trickle emanating from the injuries.

At least I won't bleed to death.

Murdoch was about to pick Julia up again when he saw something in the distance, or more correctly, someone. They were still too far away to be made out properly but he was pretty sure that the person was a man. He judged this by the way they walked more than anything else. The man spotted Murdoch, turned around and hollered at someone behind him, that Murdoch had been unable to see around the bend, and then there were two men running towards them.

Murdoch didn't know what to expect so he was on guard as they rapidly approached him. And so it was that he was standing protectively in front of Julia when they finally arrived.

They were rather scraggly looking men, who seemed to spend a lot of time in the bush, and who didn't bathe very often as evidenced by the less than delightful aroma wafting from their direction. They appeared to be related and in their thirties but it was hard to tell with all the smeared dirt clouding their features. Needless to say, their appearance did little to alleviate his fears and he reflexively got into a fighting stance.

The second man laughed at that and the first one elbowed him in the ribs. That shut him up quickly.

"You okay mister?" said the first man with a southern drawl. "We was out hunting" (it was then that Murdoch noticed they had rifles strapped to their backs) "and we saw that thingamajig fall outta the darn sky! This here idjit," he hooked a thumb at the other man, "thought them Martians was landing! I told him he was a damn fool but he's dumb as a doornail!" Murdoch's expression must have been menacing enough that the man stopped talking so cheerfully and got back to the matter at hand. "So, uh, can we help y'all out? We was heading back to town anyways. It'd be no trouble at all. We didn't catch a damn thing."

The second man grumbled at that statement but didn't say anything. Murdoch wasn't sure if he could trust these men, so he wasn't moving a muscle.

"You followin' me?"

Murdoch nodded slightly.

The man got a puzzled expression on his face and then said, "Oh, I see. You 'fraid of us mister? Don't be. We might look like rascals but we's good people. Besides, you need us to get outta this here forest. You been goin' the wrong way! It'd take days to get out that darn way! And by the looks of things, you ain't gonna last that long."

Murdoch still didn't respond or make a move.

"Okay, how's about this? I give you one of our guns and then you don't needa be so darn 'fraid of us. How's that sound?"

Murdoch nodded.

The man turned to his companion and said, "Give him your gun."

"I don't wanna," complained the second man, also with an accent. "Give him yours!"

The first man effortlessly pulled him into a head lock. The second man struggled feebly. "Give him your damn gun, Marvin!" he shouted.

"No!"

The first man began squeezing and Marvin started to go purple.

He managed to squeak out, "Fine! Lemme go you stinkin' bastard!"

The first man released him and Marvin begrudgingly handed over his rifle.

"You better not break it," he murmured.

Murdoch still wasn't sure what to do. If he strapped it on his back so that he could carry Julia again, it wouldn't be much use to him if he did end up needing it for whatever reason. But at the same time, he didn't really want either of them touching her.

The first man seemed to pick up on his dilemma and said, "You can keep that gun out and I'll carry the purdy lady. I promise to behave like a gentleman. If I go back on my word," he grinned widely, "you can shoot me."

It was pretty obvious that he didn't have much of a choice. They were going to freeze without their help and besides which, he was far too exhausted from everything to carry her much further. Just holding the gun was tiring him out. So he sighed and let the man pick her up.

"I'm Frank, by the way," he said after they started moving. "And that there's my dumbass brother Marvin."

"Yes, I gathered as much," said Murdoch. "I'm detective William Murdoch."

Frank stopped in his tracks and shared a look with Marvin.

"What's the matter?" asked Murdoch.

"Oh, nothin'," responded Frank as he continued walking again. "It's just…we don't often times come across no po-lease."

"I see," said Murdoch, getting suspicious again.

Frank saw his expression and said, "Like I told you before. We ain't bad people. You see, our towns real small so we don't got any coppers there."

"And how small would that be?"

"Oh, I reckon there's maybe twenty of us, all told."

Murdoch didn't like this revelation. It meant that it was highly unlikely that they had an actual doctor there.

Frank noticed him glancing at Julia and said, "Don't you worry mister. We's got a great lady over yonder who'll fix her up in a jiffy! She done fixed all my busted bones!" He laughed at that. "Everythin's gonna be hunky dory!"

Murdoch wasn't quite so sure. For whatever reason, he felt that there was something off about these two. He felt it in his gut. But it was probably nothing. Maybe it was just the cop side of him being paranoid, or maybe not. He would find out soon enough.