Disclaimer:

Obviously, I own nothing.

Spoilers, seasons 1-2.

A/N:

I couldn't wait a year to find out what happens after the end of Season 2. This story picks up just as the Season 2 finale is ending. Our team has climbed out of the helicopter, coming to rescue their loved ones. All of whom seem afraid of them, and may believe them to be time travelers and/or terrorists. I wanted to explore what happens after you find out something like that. Do you believe it? Can you trust this person? Canon through the finale of Season 2. I'm not expecting to introduce any major new plot. This is a character piece, examining the impact of the truth on the team's relationships. It begins with David's point of view, but subsequent chapters will explore the points of view of other characters, both travelers and non-travelers. I'm expecting to complete this story in 5-10 short chapters.

"We can get past this," Marcy was saying to David. Or maybe it wasn't really Marcy talking – maybe it was some ... thing. If he could believe in science fiction, that time travel was real, that the Marcy he'd found on the streets was gone, that her consciousness had been overwritten by this ... thing, or well, he supposed he should call it a person. But that was crazy. David wasn't living in a world where ... He was not a minor character in some quirky science fiction movie, kept around for comic relief. No, there must be a reasonable explanation.

But what if?

"I don't think we can," David said, backing away from her.

"You killed my husband!" Katherine shrieked at Agent MacLaren, as Carly and the angry cop began arguing over who was allowed to hold the baby, as the high school kid ran over to his guidance counselor (possible fellow time traveler), and David heard Ray tell Phillip that he'd been straight with him from the beginning, but they weren't friends. Weirdly, Phillip had told Ray that he was a time traveler, but the sketchy court-appointed lawyer hadn't believed him. Of all the things that had happened today, Ray's disbelief made the most sense of anything.

"What do you think is happening, David?" Marcy asked.

He shook his head, unable or unwilling to mull it out any more, unable to think hard enough to give her a definitive answer.

"Can I have everyone's attention?" MacLaren yelled.

The authority and urgency of voice made David and everyone else turn to the FBI agent, stop talking or yelling, and listen raptly as he spoke.

"I'd like to set the record straight," MacLaren told them, his voice level and calm, but no less urgent. "There is no such thing as time travel. You were all kidnapped. Your lives were in danger. My team gave the kidnappers what they wanted, told them what they wanted to hear, so that our loved ones would be released."

Jeff laughed, then pulled the baby closer to him just as Carly was reaching out towards her son once again. Was the baby really her son? This was getting confusing. "Are you really expecting us to believe that?"

"When the alternative is that time travel is real?" MacLaren said, his voice deadpan.

"And one of your team is a high school kid?" Jeff barked. "Since when does the FBI have a work-study program? And what's Carly got to do with the FBI?"

MacLaren glared hard at Jeff and sighed. "They are specialists. And any more information about my team and its activities is classified." He paused, raising his eyebrows at the angry cop, as if daring him to interrupt again. When no more interruptions came, the agent continued. "We played along with their truly, truly bizarre conspiracy theory. However, we were unable to stop the video footage from getting out into the world. So, your lives are about to become ... odd. Some of you may be questioned by the authorities. You may even be in the news. I would expect a media frenzy, especially coming from the tabloids. The New York Times might not take this seriously, because they are reasonable people. But The National Enquirer? Regardless, if we could all get on the same page, I'm sure it'll die down soon."

He paused, glancing from person to person, seeming like a teacher giving a lecture before an important test. "Nobody killed anybody's husband," MacLaren said. "Carly should be permitted to hold her child. Marcy is going to give David some medical attention. And we are all going to cooperate with whomever is coming in that entourage of siren-ed vehicles." He took a breath. "There is no such thing as time travel. Do I make myself clear?"

David nodded. He was almost convinced. He allowed Marcy to open her medical kit and begin cleaning off his bloodied face, wiping away dried blood, from where the kidnappers had beaten him. They'd been hoping to send a message to Marcy. Their message had clearly worked, because she'd made that super terrifying, super weird video, in which she claimed to be a time traveler.

"I was so scared," she said softly. He was about to reply, but MacLaren's wife began talking again. Fast.

"What's your mother's maiden name?" she asked her husband.

He frowned before answering, "O'Keefe."

Katherine took a deep shaky breath, relief coursing over her features. But then she steeled herself again. "Where did you grow up?"

"Pittsburg. Honey, what are you trying to prove?"

"That would be in public records."

"Are we back to me being a time traveler from the future?"

"Who was the best man at our wedding?"

MacLaren paused for just a second before he said, "Walt."

"Where did you take me on our first date?"

MacLaren froze. He looked like he was racking his brain. "It was that restaurant, you know the one," he finally muttered.

Katherine's face fell.

"It was a seafood place," MacLaren said. "It's not there anymore, but you liked the crab cakes, and I had salmon, but I complained that it was the only thing that was called steak on the menu, even though it wasn't an actual steak."

Katherine frowned, saying, "That was our third date."

"Hey, he's pretty close," David said, relieved out of his mind. Turning towards Katherine, he asked her, "How would a time traveler know that? People don't generally put their hang-ups about seafood menus on a public record."

"Grant, or 34 whatever you are, what was our first date?" she said, voice icy cold.

Agent MacLaren smiled a charming smile and said, "Honey, I really thought that was it."

"It was on our first date that you stopped calling me Katherine. Remember?"

He nodded.

"Why?"

"I don't know, Katherine was to call you, when I fell in love with so fast," MacLaren said, voice rising in pitch, and in nervousness.

"No specific reason?"

"Kat, we've been married ten years, do you remember every second of it?"

She laughed bitterly as she told him, "I remember that you took me to the top of the Space Needle on our first date, because I was new to town and I told you that I'd never been, that I wished I could be a tourist in Seattle for just one day. And then when we got to the top, you had a moment of fear, the height just got to you, and I grabbed onto your hand. You said I was like a cat, comfortable way up high, and steady on my feet. And it was always Kat, after that afternoon way up in the sky."

MacLaren just nodded, not saying anything.

"But that wasn't you, was it?" Katherine snapped. Her face turned ugly. MacLaren's wife was still beautiful, of course, but her expression – so filled with hatred and repulsion – it made her look ugly.

"Of course it was," her husband/possibly-not-husband told her.

The sirens were getting closer.

"All's I know is that my Carly wouldn't have almost killed me the other night," Jeff was saying as he bounced the baby up and down, trying to stop it from crying.

"You were drunk and you struck me. Again!" Carly shouted.

"What?" MacLaren whipped around to glare at Jeff. "You have got to be the stupidest person on the face of the planet. How hard is it to not hit women?"

"Who are you?" Katherine shrieked at her husband.

"Even I don't hit women," Ray remarked in an offhand way to Phillip.

"How are you so calm?" Phillip asked his sort-of friend. It was seriously sad that this college-aged kid didn't have any other friends.

Ray shrugged.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Trevor asked Grace, who had this oddly blank look on her face. And why didn't the high school kid have any friends besides his guidance counselor?

Marcy pulled David back towards her and continued cleaning his wounds. "I'm just so glad they didn't do any permanent damage," she was saying.

"So, I'm not going to need plastic surgery?" he quipped.

She laughed. "I know you have a million questions. I'm just so glad you're okay. And I'm just so sorry. To put you in this kind of danger."

"You hit her one more time and you'll have me to answer to!" MacLaren was yelling at Jeff.

"She's the one you were sleeping with, isn't she?" Katherine was shrieking. "God, Grant! She's half your age."

David smiled at Marcy, a sad but sincere smile. The sirens were almost upon them. He grabbed her hands. "I get that you put yourself in even more danger, making that video. I get that you've saved my life at least twice now."

"I don't know what's about to happen," Marcy whispered, "but I promise –"

MacLaren's voice was getting louder and less reasonable. "I think we need to return to the problem here, which is that this young woman has repeatedly been abused by this fucking asshole."

"Why do you care?" Katherine hissed.

"Why don't you?" he snapped back at her.

"Mac, just settle down," Carly said, sounding bitter but resolved. "I can handle myself."

"But that's just the thing," Jeff said, his voice remarkably even now. "You shouldn't be able to. I mean, Mrs. MacLaren, you got to understand. Carly never had fighting skills like that, not before. Not my Carly. The real Carly."

"Are you seriously saying that you're pissed that when you abuse your child's mother, she fights back?" MacLaren asked, incredulous. "Kat, are you listening to this?"

"I'm not saying I approve of him beating her up," Katherine said with a sigh. "Of course I don't!"

"So that's my problem," MacLaren was telling his wife. "I'd just prefer it if one of my team, who it's my job to look out for, isn't getting hit by her deadbeat boyfriend."

None of these so-called time travelers sounded evil.

Jeff sounded a little evil, but no one was claiming that he was a time traveling terrorist. And frankly he didn't seem smart enough. Marcy, on the other hand was very smart.

As the first police car rounded the bend and pulled up in front of them, David came to a snap judgment. "I've got your back, Marce," he whispered. "We can pow wow later about exactly what the truth is. For right now, I'll follow your lead. If you say the kidnappers made it all up, fine. Because that makes more sense anyway. I mean, time travelers? Like we're in a sci-fi show? I am definitely not living in that genre."

She kissed his bruised cheek, her touch ever so gentle, ever so light.