I'm no expert on this (AT ALL), but I'm sure that the transmission and transfer case have "fused" themselves together over the past ten or eleven years. I would think a couple of whacks with a rubber mallet, or dead blow hammer, would persuade them to separate.
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong, it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
-Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless