Disclaimer: I don't own it. If I did there would be more Abby and Connor and Sarah and Becker.... oh well. Sorry about Becker being a little OOC but I could see him doing this and I think the characters of Becker and Sarah are way to underdeveloped. THIS CHAPTER HAS BEEN REVISED

Episode 1 Part 2

~"To hide the key to your heart is to risk forgetting where you placed it."~

Abby shivered as a cold wind blew through the parking lot. The others had moved on to the front gate and were heading toward security. She stood still, watching for any chink in the armour, a flaw or a dent; something that would give this ARK away as something different, something other than her ARK.

The whole team had spent the entire car ride in awkward silence, Stephen prodding and poking her for answers about who Connor was. When he realised how unsuccessful that would be he promptly shut up. Abby still hadn't seen the medical team. She had chugged about 20 bottles of water and a handful of crisps to battle her "dehydration and sever hunger'. Other than being tired, she felt fine. In truth she wanted to go home, forget this mess as a simple dream and nothing more.

The world was moving on without her and a new anomaly had opened up in farming country about a mile from the ARK. Fortunately because she was suffering from "Acute exhaustion", there was nothing she could do, Lester was afraid she might fall asleep on the job apparently. So she had to be dropped off at the ARK while the others drove off to save the world again. Lester wanted her questioned and analyzed for anything out of the ordinary.

"ABBY! Come on, get that arse in gear!" it was Danny, beckoning to her from the door way. She ran up to him and slipped inside into the familiar white glow of the ARK. Nothing had changed, it was all so similar.

"Danny, do I still live in the same place?" she had to jog slightly to keep up with his long strides.

"How would I know?" he laughed "I don't exactly know where you lived before"

"My little loft down in Camden?"

"Yeah, and you have a pet dinosaur called Rex, and two giant hamsters called Sid and Nancy. Hope you remember them 'cos Rex will be well depressed if you've forgotten his name"

"No I remember Rex, he was my first ever creature." She paused , her hand suddenly flying to her mouth . Danny turned to face her as she grabbed his arm.

"Do I... live with anyone.... roommate, brother.... boyfriend?"

"No, not that I know of. You always said you would jump of the London Bridge if you ever got a roommate." She smiled; she had always said that until Connor came along.

"Yeah well, don't forget it." She punched him in the arm and turned around to look at the labs they were passing. She couldn't stop sniffling, and as excited as she was to go home she knew as soon as she did she would run into Connors (empty) room, and burst into heaving sobs.

"So you all off then?"

"Becker is staying. He hit his head pretty bad and I think he's worried about you. Lester won't let him out in the field either. He's had a pretty short leash since jenny."

"Oh god! Did jenny-"

"NO no, she's not dead or nothing. But he seems to think part of the reason she resigned was because she almost died, which is probably a very good point. If there's even the smallest thing wrong with us now, we're benched". They had reached the main hub of the ARK, and technicians were swirling and swirling round the multiple monitors of the Anomaly detector. A young Asian woman was tinkering with the circuit board in what looked to be a game boy. She flipped it over and Abby recognised it as one of Connors designs for the new handheld. The blueprints had been in the huge stack of things that Lester wanted Connor to do for the ARK. She was about an inch away from the lab techs head, and the blueprints she was looking at, when Stephen walked past them with a cup of star bucks.

"Danny, Lester wants us to be leaving NOW, so I suggest you go and grab your gun and detector." He continued walking and then, seemingly as an afterthought, turned to Abby "Lester told you to get to the interrogation room ASAP"

As he walked away Abby asked "so who built the detectors then?"

"Stephen did". Danny said this with such sincerity that Abby had to giggle. When she saw how serious he really was she quickly turned it into a yawn.

"What"

"Nothing I didn't say anything'

"You did that stifling yawn thing that you do when you're trying not to laugh." She had to admit, this Danny knew her pretty well, a lot better than her Danny.

"It's just, in my reality, were Stephen slept with Helen and died, he wasn't really the brain. More of an action man"

"You joking, Stephens a total brain. He developed most of the technology around you." He gave her a goofy smile, and she looked down, her dry eyes suddenly moist.

"What?" Danny looked confused as Abby raised her head, brave face failing when he saw her rapidly reddening eyes and tear tracks.

"That was Connors job, tech guy. He was such a dork. Goofy grin always wore the weirdest clothes."

"Such as?

"just a mix of things, He was never without a pair of fingerless gloves, suit waistcoats and skinny jeans. And he had this weird thing for fedoras" she laughed remembering the hair cut he had when they first meet, flipping out perfectly under the brim of his hat.

"You were close"

"Oh I don't know," she sighed. Truth was they were closer than she would ever admit. Best friends. "He was irritating and weird. He went on and on in science jargon, loved to watch star trek, star wars. Anything with star in the title really, dead easy to shop for at Christmas" but yeah, she thought, we were close.

CUT TO INTERRIGATION ROOM CUT TO INTERRIGATION ROOM CUT TO INTERRIGATION

"Name?"

"Abby Maitland"

"Age?"

"23"

"How old where you when you started working at the ARK?"

"20"

"What was your profession before hand?"

"Amateur zoologist"

"Define amateur please."

"I never received any formal training." Becker looked at her quizzically. This was probably one of the weirdest interviews in her life. She was sitting in the interrogation room that they held all their interviews in, only this time she was on the other side of the table, where nervous military guys sat while Lester and Jenny verbally abused them.

"Rank at the ARK"

"Field Agent 3" Becker nodded add started shuffling the files around, read to move into the more uncomfortable part of the talk, the actual talking part.

"Field agent 2 if Danny has anything to say about it "

"What do you mean?"

"Oh you know, he was thinking of sending Stephan back into the lab. The guys a great tracker but give him a gun and a target in London and he will somehow end up hitting Kansas."

"Different than my Stephen"

"Your Stephen?"

"The one from my world, he was more of an action man"

Becker chuckled "that was the nickname he gave me on our first day, when I joined after Tom died he wasn't so happy, thought I was intruding."

"Tom?"

"Last name Curran, tall red head bloke. I met him once when I was just another one of your army guys." Becker pulled out a small pile of photos, one for each of the ARK personnel including Leek and Cutter. Abby immediately picked up the photo of Connors friend Tom; she recognised his scruffy hair and beard from when he had attacked her all those years ago; Her brain instantly bringing forth the image of his body being zipped into a pristine white body bag.

"He was one of Connors friends in my world. And in my world he never knew about any of this, died a couple of months after the group formed. Connor was distraught." She remembered the awkward silence in her apartment that lasted for weeks, until Connor just started brushing it off.

"Speaking of Connor, we've covered all the formal questions and personality profiling, so it's time to play spot the bloody difference"

"Between this world and mine?" Becker nodded and then motioned with his hand for her to continue. They were sat in the dark of the interrogation room, the only light coming from the large round table. Abby suddenly realised how much more terrifying this room was when you were the one being asked the questions. She sat there fidgeting, not sure where to begin. She and Becker never talked much in her world, and she got the sense that the same was true here. He was nice enough, but she wasn't sure if she could confide in him about Connor.

"Start at the beginning Abby, with the forming of the original AR Team"

"It was Cutter, Stephen, Leek, Connor and I. We met on our first anomaly by chance. I had just dropped out of collage to be a zoologist, just barley 20. Cutter was still looking for answers after Helen, Stephen and Leek just went along with Cutter and Lester, and Connor was searching for something different, something... more. He was 22, and yet he seemed so much younger, a naive kind of guy. We were in the home office until the anomaly with the dodos"

"We have that on record, parasites right? It bit one of Tom's friends Duncan"

"In my reality it bit Tom. After that Lester funded to have this place built, a more secure location tailored to our needs. Then Helen appeared and everything was a mess, suddenly Cutter was talking about this woman called Claudia brown, and then we found out that Leek was working with Helen. And on top of that Helen was sleeping with Stephen and Connors girlfriend was hired by Leek, which didn't surprise me at all, and it all got a bit confusing after that."

"Why didn't Connors girlfriend working for Leek surprise you?"

"Connor was a geek. He was a sweet geek alright but he was still a geek. So when he got a girlfriend we were all a little suspicious. Turned out she was actually sort of into him, but he didn't actually like her, I just think he was sort of desperate. Anyway, Stephen died to save the team-"

"That's how Tom died. He locked himself in with a bunch of creatures."

"And Lester hired you and Cutter hired Sarah. After Cutter died, Connor changed. He was different ever since Stephen and Leek but, after Cutter..." she looked away remember how much of a workaholic he had become, the leader now instead of the sidekick." Anyway Lester hired Danny. Helen came back and vowed to go back in time-"

"to sight 333, yeah were on the same page there" he was scribbling in his report , pondering aloud if they should get a sketch artist in for Connor, then noted it down on the edge if the page.

"Are we done?"

"Yep finished"

"Can I go home?" she was pleading with her eyes. He laughed at her expression"

"You can go whenever you want." She stayed seated, thinking of going home, thinking of opening the door to an empty apartment. Her mind played through walking upstairs to find no clothes crumpled on the floor, all the lights off and the chairs tucked in, not DVD's overflowing onto the floor. But there would also be no music, the music only Connor had, all of his weird indie rock. There would be no note on the fridge, or playful discussion over takeout that night. She would walk into his empty room, sit on the guest bed and cry her eyes out, curled into a ball, missing the smell of his shampoo in the bathroom steam and on the pillows. It all seemed so empty.

"do you really want to go?" he leaned over toward her, studying her face. He really was creepy good at this counsellor stuff.

"No." It was a whisper, not the strong' I'm fine' she had planned

"You and Connor where close,"

"Best friends I guess. He could always cheer me up on a bad day, always. We would have the worst day ever, saving the world and hating everything and everyone, but then we would go home and it would be like we were never involved in the ARK, we were just to college roommates ."

`Go home Abigail, you have to do it sometime and you need to cry long and hard before you come back. `

`When did you become so sensitive?"

"There are a lot of things you people don't know about me, like the fact I studied physiology for 2 years before getting a job in combat" Abby laughed slightly as Becker got up and left, still jotting notes down.

BACK AT HOME BACK AT HOME BACK AT HOME BACK AT HOME

Quiet, just as she predicted. She shuffled to the kitchen and put the kettle on to boil. Rex was sleeping next to the heater and Sid and Nancy were curled up in front of the radiator in the corner. Abby slowly started up the stairs one foot at a time. It seemed so hostile, not clothes falling down stairs or DVDs and Xbox games stacked in piles, cold and sterile, completely unlived in. She flicked the light on; An empty room, just a bed, a table and a wardrobe. It wasn't until she left that she noticed something. A photograph caught under the legs of the bed, one of those long strips from a photo booth. They were all of her except for the last one, were she was caught fighting a hand wearing a pair of grey and yellow knitted fingerless gloves.

End Quote:

The existence of forgetting has never been proved: we only know that some things do not come to our mind when we want them to"

AN: Yay chapter 2, my fastest and longest update ever. Please review again and thank you to Obsessed-Primeval for the fav and to mazmaxicle, I hope this meets expectations. There is now some doubt as to what has happened, what with the glove and all. And no the pictures didn't fall out of Abby's pocket, they really are there