NICK
Dealing with a flock of raptors loose in a football field was just as exhausting as it sounded, and it was almost midnight before the battered team returned to the ARC. Miraculously, they'd managed to round up all the raptors and get them home just before the anomaly closed, but it had still taken a long few hours to chase them in and out of the many rows of seats in the dark. Now, of course, Lester wanted a full report, but he had ever so graciously agreed to let the team go home and sleep first. Cutter, who had dropped by his office to collect something before returning home with Stephen, was on his way out when he spotted something unusual.

Connor was also in his office, but unlike Cutter he showed no intention of leaving. The door was ajar, giving Cutter a full view into the office and at Connor... who was sprawled out over two beanbags, fast asleep.

Cutter knocked on the door. "Connor. Hey." When the only response was for Connor to sniffle and half-roll over, Cutter entered the office and knelt beside him. "Connor. Wake up." He gently shook Connor's shoulders until the young man gave a reluctant groan and opened his eyes.

"Morning, Professor. Wait... Professor?" Connor bolted upright, their foreheads almost colliding. "Hey! What are you doing here? Erm... Did I oversleep?"

"You fell asleep, yeah," Cutter said. "In your office. Come on, it's nearly midnight. You need to get home."

"Oh." Connor's face suddenly took on a sheepish expression. "Heh. Yeah, about that, Professor..." He scratched the back of his neck, avoiding Cutter's eyes. "Uh... I'm sort of spending the night here. You know. Just for a little adventure. Thought it'd be fun. I promise not to break anything!"

Cutter looked Connor over properly and realised that he was wearing soft pyjamas and had a blanket draped over himself. The professor paused, then looked around the office. It was larger than the rest, and the second half of it had been converted into a den – complete with something in the corner that looked suspiciously like a laundry hamper. "Connor," Cutter said slowly, "are you living here?"

"No," Connor answered defensively, too quickly to be telling the truth. "Erm. Well, sort of. I've been kicked out of my mate's place... again. But, you know, it's really all right sleeping here. You get used to the beanbags after a while."

"Do you sleep here often?" Cutter asked.

Connor squirmed. "Every once in a while. After Jones moved into the flat I was here for about a week. Then I moved in with my friend Jake, but he threw me out after a few weeks, so I slept here again for a while. Then Fred put me up, but he's got a girlfriend now, and he likes her better than me, so I'm back here." He adjusted the blanket around his legs, looking very self-conscious. "It's okay, though, Professor, really. I'll find someplace else to go."

"Lester would kill you if he found you here," Cutter said, looking around again.

"Probably," Connor agreed.

Cutter let out a long sigh and stood up. "You'd better come with me."

Connor stared at him. "Seriously? Would Stephen be okay with that?"

Cutter looked him over. "In the short term. Maybe. If you ask him nicely. I guess we'll have to see."

Cutter's prediction turned out to be true, though it was easy to see that Stephen wasn't incredibly enthusiastic about opening up his house to yet another lodger. Even after Connor's agreement to sleep on the couch and his fervent assurances that he never left his dirty boxer shorts on the bathroom floor anymore, Stephen was very quiet on the long drive home, and left it to Cutter to show Connor around the house. Altogether, it meant that it was a long time before Cutter could finally make it into bed, and longer still before he fell asleep.

He did not dream. Dreaming had never been his style; his brain worked without rest whenever he was awake, so it didn't have the time to think up elaborate fantasies while he slept. Instead, what kept Cutter awake was the various problems that refused to leave his head before he fell asleep. In simpler times they had been evolutionary puzzles that he and Helen would discuss late into the night, but now his mind was filled with an entirely different woman and the sort of sentimental, sappy thoughts that his younger self would have gagged at. Claudia Brown.

He wondered what she would think if she knew how often she was in his thoughts, and came to the conclusion that it was better that she didn't. If she had wanted to follow up on their last kiss, she would have. The fact that she had not – that they had not spoken about anything more than their work – said to him very clearly that she felt nothing outside the realms of professional towards him. With a short sigh, Cutter vowed, as he did every night, to put what they may have once shared behind him and move on. It was not an easy thought, and it kept him awake long into the night.

The following morning, Cutter, Claudia, Connor, Jones, and Lester gathered in the meeting room to present the report on the previous night's incursion. Cutter, who had arrived unshaven and fashionably late just to annoy his boss, sat back in his chair and listened in silence. "... eight raptors," Jones was saying, "but we managed to round them up and ship them back home. No casualties, one slight injury – sprained ankle – but he'll be fine. No witnesses."

"We were lucky," Claudia added. "It could have been much worse."

"Hm." Lester folded his arms and glared across the table. "Professor Cutter. Anything to add?"

"No."

"Very well. You're all dismissed. Connor, you still owe me this month's report. Professor Cutter, do try and arrive on time when you bother to turn up at all, won't you?"

Cutter only smiled and shook his head as he left the meeting room. He was on his way back to his office when he heard someone call out to him.

"Cutter."

He froze at the voice and turned around quickly. "Claudia?"

"We need to talk."

Cutter sighed, assuming it was about his tardiness. "I'm not really in the mood for a lecture right now. I'm sorry I was late; I had a long night."

"We all did," she answered. "I wasn't going to tell you off."

"Oh." Cutter scratched the back of his neck. "Then... what did you want to talk about?"

"Helen." Claudia folded her arms. "I want to know if you think she's gone for good."

Cutter rubbed at his eyes, wishing that he'd slept better so that he could feel more prepared for this conversation. "Come to my office," he said wearily, and led her down the hallway. He'd acquired the office after all the events surrounding Helen's appearance, as well as clothes, a mobile phone, and all the other things he'd left behind in the other universe. He took a chair at his desk; Claudia sat opposite him and spoke before he had the chance.

"It's been almost two months now," she said briskly, "and we haven't seen or heard anything from Helen at all. Despite that, we're still on full alert, you're walking around as though on eggshells, Lester gets jumpy every time we mention a woman anywhere near an anomaly site, and I –" She broke off quickly, looking away from him. "I just want to know," she finished. "How likely is it that she'll return?"

Cutter leaned back in his chair and was silent for a long few moments. "Helen can be very determined when she wants something," he said eventually. "The first time she came back, she wanted company. This time, she needed someone with the aura. If she finds someone like that elsewhere..." Another Evelyn, he thought hopelessly. "...maybe she won't come back because she won't need me. I think I made it clear that I'm not exactly going to go gently."

Claudia grimaced. "So, do you think she will find someone else?"

"I don't know," Cutter answered honestly. "I don't know enough about the aura. I don't know how common it is, if it's hereditary, how you can tell who has it, whether a person who does have it would be willing to go with Helen at all..." He made a hopeless gesture with his hands, the antimetal bracelet on his wrist flashing as it caught the light. "If Evelyn were here, she could tell me," he muttered. "But I just don't know."

"You have the aura, don't you?" Claudia asked softly. "Are you able to run tests on yourself?"

"I have been," Cutter replied. "Dr Murphy is working with the government to get permission to sequence my DNA. Once that happens, we can analyse it and compare it to the standard human genome for any differences that might indicate biologically whether someone has the aura or not. Then we only have to developed a test that can give a definitive result for people. Every member of CARI's staff needs to be tested, starting with the Fieldwork team. I wish Evelyn had had the chance to look people over, but..." He shook his head. "I wish a lot of things. It doesn't matter now."

"You sound like you're doing a lot of work," Claudia remarked.

"Yeah." Cutter held up the wrist that had the thick antimetal bracelet on it. "Connor's being investigating this, too. He's been working with one of the geologists in Research to figure out its exact composition and properties, and whether we can replicate those using a metal from our universe." He cut himself off, smiling a little, ruefully. "Sorry. It's just good to feel as though we're making progress. Our research on the anomalies was getting a little stagnant, so it's nice to have something else to work on."

Claudia smiled. "Do you ever take a break?"

"I remember to sleep, sometimes." At Cutter's words, Claudia's smile vanished. He watched her raise a hand to her temple and look away from him. "Hey," he said gently. "You okay?"

She smiled again, but it was stretched this time. "I don't sleep well when I'm stressed," she admitted quietly. "It's not a big deal. It's getting better."

He leaned towards her, elbows on the desk. "What are you stressed about?" he asked, concerned. "Is it Helen?"

"No," she answered quickly, not looking at him. "Well... yes. I'm not stressed about her, exactly; I just... I dream about it, sometimes. I've been talking to Dr Shepard about it, and it is getting better. She just says it will take time."

Cutter sat back and ran a hand over his face. "I'm so sorry," he said hopelessly. "You should have told me. I... Claudia, I'm so sorry." He looked at her, even though she refused to return his gaze. "Can I do anything to help?"

"I don't think so." She looked as though she was regretting bringing it up at all. "It's fine, Cutter. Don't worry about me."

"It's not fine," he answered in a low voice. "It was my fault this happened in the first place, and now... I wish I could do something. Anything. She should never have been able to grab you like that; I should have stopped her."

"Cutter." Claudia stared at him imploringly. "Don't worry about me. I mean it."

"Why shouldn't I worry about you?" Cutter shot back, regret and anger making his voice rise. "Claudia, you were practically kidnapped and killed, and now this." He sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't have come back," he muttered bitterly. "It's done nothing but cause trouble for everyone else."

Claudia dropped her gaze, and he wondered what she was thinking. On impulse, he asked her. "Do you wish that?" he asked. "Do you wish that I'd never come back?"

Slowly, very slowly, she raised her gaze to meet his own. He saw the gentle shadows under her eyes that no amount of make-up could hide, and the lines in her forehead that had not been there when they had first met. He saw the marks of stress and worry and lack of sleep that had been caused by this project and by him. He wondered if she regretted agreeing to it all in the first place, if she regretted their very first kiss in the hotel all those years ago.

"No," she said, very quietly. "I don't wish that."