I've had the idea for this story for a few weeks now, but school has gotten in the way of writing. AP History is a massive time suck. Anyway, I've already written the first few chapters. In my opinion, this one kind of sucks, but I couldn't find a way to make it better, and I really want to move forward with posting the rest of the story. So, here it is.

Disclaimer: As usual, I don't own anything other than this story. Believe me, if I did, Eureka would be on year-round, not just during the summer.

The Return

"So, we're back. Just like that?"

Carter shivered as he tried to shake off the confused feeling that accompanied time travel. On either side of him, he saw Allison and Fargo doing the same. Across from him, so were Jo and Henry.

The five of them were standing in a perpetually vacant lab at GD that was closed off by security in case someone ever needed it. Allison and Fargo had picked the spot. It was the only place they could appear without tripping alarms or having to walk miles back into a town that they couldn't be completely sure was theirs.

Henry nodded slowly and let a small smile break across his face. "Yeah. Just like that. I think."

"You think?" Allison asked tensely. "I think knowing might be nice."

Carter winced out of sympathy for both Allison and Henry. Allison hadn't taken it well when Henry told her that he and Grant had found away to return the six of them to their proper timelines. She didn't want to leave the new Kevin, the one who hugged and talked to her. But in the end, even she had to agree that everyone returning to their timeline was best for both realities, if not for them personally.

But it was hard on Henry too. He had finally won Grace over, and then had to tell her that they were leaving. And he had spent months trying to figure out away to get them back to their Founder's Day.

"I'm pretty sure," Fargo said from next to the door. He leaned forward and let the lock scan his irises. Nothing happened. "It says that the lab has to be opened by the Director of Global Dynamics, who apparently isn't me anymore."

Allison quickly strode forward and let the lock perform the scan. There was a quiet beep, then the door slid open.

Carter let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. They were back.

"Just because Allison's the Director again doesn't mean that everything is the same." Jo pointed out as they left the lab. "Henry, you said earlier that traveling to another timeline and going backwards in time was near impossible."

"Well, to my knowledge, no one has ever done it before," Henry admitted.

"So," Carter said slowly, "this is the timeline we came from, but things may not be exactly the way they were before?"

Henry nodded again. "It's hard to say, since it's never been done. But, there will most likely be a few changes, though much more minor than they were before."

"We can only hope." Carter said. He was not looking forward to the possibility of returning to SARAH, only to have to find Tess there and break up with her for the third time.

"Here's something different." Fargo called from the front off the group as he reached the deserted rotunda. "All the lights are off. It must be the middle of the night. We left in the afternoon."

"Like I said, it's never been done before." Henry repeated. "Before, we just went back in time. Then we traveled forward, in that same timeline. The future changed because we affected the past. But jumping back in time and to a different reality is completely different. I honestly have no idea what's going to happen."

"You mean we have different jobs or be homeless or be some crackpot who goes around claiming to have been abducted by aliens?" Fargo demanded.

Henry shrugged. "Could be."

Carter took a deep breath. So much for everything being the way they left it.

And Fargo's hyperventilating wasn't helping.

Jo shook her head and grabbed Fargo by the shoulders. "Fargo, you need to calm down. If you keep whimpering like that, one of the night guards will hear us. If they use the shifts I assigned in the other timeline, one of them will be passing by in a few minutes. Getting caught by them means a lot of questions and an investigation that could get all of us fired and removed from Eureka."

Fargo nodded and attempted to calm down.

"Okay, we need a plan." Carter said. "We need to find out as much information as possible about this world before we leave the building or get caught. That should save us from the more nasty surprises."

"No," Allison argued, "we need to get home. I have to check on Kevin and Jenna. I have to know that they're both alright."

"You can't" Jo replied. She ignored Allison's scathing glare and continued on. "If any of us leave the building now, we'll run into security for sure. We have to stay here until morning."

"So back to what I said. We need to learn as much as possible."

"We can use my office," Allison sighed as she accepted the logic. "If I'm Director, I should have access to all of your files."

Henry glanced at her, then down the corridor where they could hear a guard coming. "We'd better get in there fast then."

Three hours later, they were all relatively relieved to find that they seemed much the way they had in their original timeline. Under the guard of the static protocol, they had safely found and read through all of their files.

Henry was still a bachelor and never seemed to have had any contact with Grace Monroe. Fargo was just an assistant, and as accident prone as he had always been. Jo was still Carter's deputy and her house was still standing. Allison was the Director of GD and lived alone with her two children. Carter was still single and living alone in SARAH.

They had all taken the news hard. Henry had lost his wife and Fargo had been demoted. Allison had less time to spend with her kids and Carter seemed to be as alone as ever.

Jo was the only one who managed to find a bright spot. Even though she had a less prestigious job, from the arrest records they had dug up, Zane hadn't been in jail for years. She could only hope that that still meant that they were together. She sat quietly on the corner of the couch, playing with the engagement ring on the chain around her neck.

Carter sat next to Allison on the floor, holding her hands. She was waiting to get home to see her kids. If something had happened to either of them, it would devastate her.

Henry sat next to Jo on the couch, absently threading his fingers together.

Fargo fidgeted in his chair as he saw some of the early morning maintenance workers entering the rotunda. He was almost afraid to break the silence, but eventually said, "I think it's safe for us to go now."

Allison jumped up and pulled her coat on. The others followed suit.

"Hey," Carter said before anyone passed the threshold, "let's meet at Café Diem tonight. Nine o' clock, same table as last time?"

"Yeah, sure, just like last time," Jo said as she walked out the door. "Only, hopefully this time it won't suck as much."

So, what did you think? Personally, I think that it gets a lot better after this, but I'm kind of biased. Feel free to correct any grammatical errors in a review. I have a tendency to forget how to write over the summer, so any and all feedback is really helpful.