STILL NOT MINE. STILL NOT BETA'D

Rick raised his knife to the walker and took a quick assessment of his surroundings. He was flanked by Herschel and Daryl, like planned. Lori and Carl were directly behind him. He heard their exhaustion with every swing of a blade or kick of a pistol, but they kept fighting. His knife hit its target and the air shifted. It seemed like a warm front, the kind that ripped through and cause tornados and violent storms – which was exactly the opposite of what they needed right now. He stepped and assessed his next target, but was distracted when his fenced in green field was replaced with a dusty valley.

Autopilot took over, and his knife landed when needed and he made note that Lori's pistol kept firing. Carl's pistol even cracked a few times so Rick pressed on. Even when he heard Carol scream, then Beth, he still pushed on. It wasn't until Lori's voice echoed off the valley walls in waves of agony that Rick lost his rhythm of killing.

"No, no, no," he ran over to her, downing two walkers on the way. "Lori."

"Oh god, Rick," she clutched his arm and he ripped the sleeve off of her shirt. The bite gashed her bicep and she was losing blood at an alarming rate.

"It's okay. When we down the walkers Herschel will come help. I'm gonna make you a tourniquet. Don't you close your eyes."

"It's too late it doesn't matter," her lips twitched at the corners.

"We don't know that."

Despair fed on looks like the one she was giving him now. The hope and anticipation she had for the future blackened under the hood of acceptance.

"Don't you give up," Rick shook her.

"Get her to the ship," a large man with a seemingly larger gun ran past him and shot two walkers that had been running toward them. When had the walkers turned into runners? They were so much more aggressive tonight. "Go!" the large man demanded and pointed behind them.

Rick remembered watching Mary Poppins as a child, and when they all jumped into the sidewalk paintings, he'd wondered what it'd be like to just switch worlds on a whim. That had to be what happened. A – spaceship - sat before him on a world very different from Earth. The sun was half the size it should be and the ground was … spongy. He lifted Lori and summoned Carl to follow him to the bulbous spaceship.

"Dad, where are we? What happened?"

He shrugged. Which was smarter than anything that was going to come out of his mouth.

"Get her to the infirmary," a well dressed man ushered them across the bay of the ship.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the ships doctor. Is this her only wound?"

Rick nodded, mouth slacken and body tense.

"How far along is her pregnancy?"

He simply shrugged again.

"He's going into shock," the well-dressed man yelled at a greasy woman in overalls. "Get him on the sofa in there."

It was magic, watching them move. He'd seen some interesting things in his life, but people evaporating out of nothing – that was new.

"Mal," Inara knelt behind a rock with him, "they fear nothing. Are they reavers too?"

"Don't seem to be."

They watched as the man with no sleeves dug a knife into a reaver's temple only to spin around and shoot another in the face. The short reddish haired girl ducked a blow to the head and caught that same reaver in the gut with her blade. They were obviously highly trained and very effective in the art of killing. Inara found herself very happy they were on her side. She also found herself unable to trust a single one of them.

"WOOO!" they heard Jayne's victory yell and looked back to see the reavers laying in a pool, an ocean of blood. The old man sloshed through the blood to the pretty young blonde girl who'd gone and gotten bit.

"Beth," he held her up from the ground in his lap as he knelt next to her.

"Pa, pa!"

"Carol!" the sleeveless man ran to the other woman who'd been wounded.

"Daryl," she crumpled to sit on the ground and cried into her hands. The man named Daryl held her close and whispered something to her. He handed over an impressive looking pistol and she held it to her head.

"WOAH!" Mal jumped from behind the rock. "What in the hell is she doing?"

"Better this than putting the whole crew at risk later."

"Risk for what?"

"Turning into one of them," he pointed at a bloody reaver.

"Turning into.. wha… just cause they bite you?" the Captain was visibly confused.

"Daryl," a Chinese man added, "look around." They all noticed the iridescent canyon walls that glowed an eerie red, and the sun that hung awkwardly in the sky. They noticed the spaceship and the crew of this new world looking at them just as incredulously.

"Where are we?" Daryl voiced the question first.

"Delta-84. Terra-forming didn't take like it was supposed to," Mal informed.

"Terra.. what?" Carol still had the gun to her head.

"Where are you guys from?"

"Georgia. Where are you from?"

"I moved from planet to planet as a kid. I don't like to claim just one. This," he motioned over his ambassador, "is Inara. She's from Sihnon. You ever been to Whitefall?"

"Whitefall?"

Mal and Inara exchanged confused looks. "Surely if you're from Georgia, you've heard of Whitefall. It's one of the moons."

"I don't get it," Beth was still sobbing, "the virus must be getting stronger. Please, pa, just let me die. Will you be the one to do it?"

"Ain't nobody dying. We got us a good doc."

"You have an anti-virus?" the redhead asked.

"Anti…?"

"What are these things?" Daryl asked and poked a dead body.

"Those are reavers. Are you sure you're from Georgia? You don't know a lot about it. That's reaver territory."

"Born and bred. You callin' me a liar?" Daryl charged toward the Captain.

"No. I'm just a little confused."

"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," Carol finally admitted.

"It's 2518!" Lori lulled through the pain medication.

"Yeah," the man-named-Jayne bit through a piece of jerky the 'funny little Asian guy' handed him. "What year did'jyall think it was?"

"2014 by last count."

"You're from Earth-that-was?" Kaylee's eyes lit.

"No, they ain't from Earth that was," the Captain chimed in. "Now, I ain't never seen civilians fight like that. What is this? Some fancy Alliance trick to infiltrate our little operation here?"

"I say we leave 'em here and see if they can't do that magic disappear thing."

"They didn't disappear, they appeared."

"Yeah but they disappeared from somewhere."

"That's right," Maggie strutted toe to toe with the large man and even though she strained to look up at him, her stance could have intimidated a reaver back into its place. "We did come from somewhere. Let me tell you about that place. I watched my father lose his wife, my step-mother to another human. She became so ravaged by the disease that she turned into one of the things and attacked us. Then I learned from Rick and his people that these were diseased monsters – they were the dead. And they were walking. You want to leave us here and see if we can pull of some magic," she snarled, "we are not a little trick show for you and yours. We wouldn't go with you if our lives depended on it."

"Your lives do depend on it. This rock is uninhabitable. You'll be dead within 15 minutes of nightfall. Captain," Zoe turned to Mal, "we need to take off."

"Get 'em off my ship," he nodded to Jayne. "Last time I let Alliance on my ship I almost lost my mechanic."

The uproar saved them. Kaylee, the soft mechanic, wailed and 'forbid killin' such nice folk.' Inara threatened to stay behind with them. Simon argued that he just used good drugs on them, only to kill them? That didn't make much sense. And the still and silent River Tam pierced through them all with a devil-raising scream.

Daryl, Glen, Maggie, and Rick stood and drew their weapons before the scream stopped.