Her eyes traced his unconscious body, down to his feet then flicked back up to his eyes; watching for any sign of movement. Abby never left the hospital room, even when everyone else left. Everyone, that is, except for Dian. Abby didn't mind Dian staying, but in all fairness… Abby had known Connor longer, and she should be the one worried about him… not her.
She caught herself in her thoughts and hung her head, ashamed at the jealousy that brewed once more. She didn't hold anything against Dian, she had become a good mate, but it was frustrating how Connor paid so much attention to her in the way he did. So, really, she was just irritated at Connor, for being his usual clueless self.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Connor coughing, coming back into consciousness. She jerked her head up to look at him and smiled a huge grin. "Connor!" She lunged into him, hugging him tight.
"Gah!" he huffed in pain at the force of her hug. "Abby," he strained to speak. "I…can't… breathe."
Backing away, she said, "Sorry." Her smile didn't fade. "I thought… Connor, I'm just so glad you woke up." She gently hugged him again, resting her head on his chest.
This time, he hugged her back with one arm and smiled. "Jeez, how long was I unconscious?"
She laughed a little. "6 hours. You were hit in the head pretty hard. I thought you might have gone into a coma or something…" She looked really guilty. After all, it was her fault he got hurt.
He looked around the empty room. "Where is everyone?"
"They left about half an hour ago; its 3 am, Connor."
"Then why are you still here?"
"I wanted to make sure you were okay. It's my fault you're here, in the first place."
"Aw, Abby… you care." He was teasing, and she grimaced at him. He just laughed.
"Yeah… I do care, actually." She paused, rethinking what she was about to say. Was this it? Was she really going to tell Connor that she-she… loved him? Did she even love him? There was a fine line between loving someone and caring about them as family… why couldn't she just know how she felt? Why did it have to be so hard?
She chickened out. "I care about what happens to that thick head of yours; we would be at a loss at the ARC if anything happen to it." She managed to make it sound convincingly teasing and he laughed at her again. She closed her eyes and tried to muster a smile.
"Oh, Abby," Connor said.
"Hm?"
"I think your phone is ringing."
She looked over at her jacket that was hanging on a chair in the room and went to grab her phone out of the pocket. "Hello?" she answered. "Oh, yeah… hold on." She held the phone away from her ear and said to Connor, "I'll be back later; I've got to take care of something."
He just nodded and watched as she left, talking on her phone. Shortly thereafter, Dian came in and said, "Oh, Connor; you did wake up!" She then rushed over and crushed him in a hug like Abby had.
He gurgled as he couldn't breathe and was happy when she let go. "How are feeling?" she asked.
"Uh… my head hurts, and I'm a little hungry. But, otherwise, I'm fine."
"Oh, do you want something to eat? I can get you something out of the vending machine."
"No, no I'm fine. Just, sit down." He indicated to the chair next to the bed and she sat. "Dian, I have to ask you something…"
For a moment he didn't say anything, so she figured he was waiting for her response. "Okay... shoot." She swallowed, a bit nervous. Whatever it was he wanted to ask her was obviously not just some random question… it was important to him, and she was afraid of what the question was.
"Why did you stay?"
She didn't quite understand the question. "What do you mean, Con?"
"I mean, everyone else left. It's 3 am, and you're still here. I get why Abby stayed; she's my best mate and all but… I don't get why you stayed." He was obviously looking for a deep meaning in her reason for staying, she knew that's what he would want to hear.
"I uh… I don't know."
"You were worried about me?" he suggested.
She laughed a little. "Well, yeah, obviously. But, Connor, I don't know what's happening to me… I've never been so torn in my life."
He didn't seem to understand what she meant. "What are you torn between?" His eyes brightened, hopeing she meant what he thought she did.
He looked her straight in the eyes, and she couldn't stand that so she looked at the floor. "Look… about that kiss."
The corner of his mouth twitched up as he tried not to smile. "Yeah?" And then his face fell. "Wait… you're not going to tell me-" he paused, examining her face, trying to tell what she was thinking. "Dian, please don't tell me that didn't mean anything…"
"No… it did. But, you see… I don't want it to. It's very complicated but, I simply can't have feelings for you, Connor."
"But, why not?" He was tired of the constant battle of indecisiveness with women. He was just about ready to give up on trying to understand anything they said.
"I… I'm not on the right timeline Connor. Anything I do here could screw up the timelines. So, I can't be with you… or anyone for that matter."
"Wait… what?"
She took a deep breath, and then continued, "This isn't my time. I mean… the people here have different lives, something has happened with the evolutionary timeline, and it's happened before but I was able to change the mistake I had made in one anomaly to bring me back to my original timeline but, this time I have no idea what I've done. But, I knew Danny before now… in a different life. He was my dad's best friend. And my dad's name… was Nick Cutter."
The words split through the air like a knife. Connor couldn't speak, only managing to say, "What?" in a breathless voice.
She nodded her head. I heard you guys talking about him; that he'd died. In my time, he was married to a woman named Claudia Brown… does she exist here?"
Connor's head was spinning, so much that it hurt. Cutter had been telling the truth… Claudia Brown did exist in another life. A life that Dian had lived in. Somehow, there are different timelines; all working together… but how? None of this made sense. But, one thing was for certain; Dian must be part of Cutter and Claudia's future in their old timeline, the one that Cutter had changed. So… she was Cutter's daughter. Then… "I wonder…" Connor whispered out loud.
"What?"
He looked at Dian. "Nothing, nothing. It's just… I knew Cutter, your father. But he came from that timeline to here, where Claudia Brown doesn't exist. Her name is Jenny Lewis here… Cutter had tried to tell us that but, we never really believed him."
Dian shook her and said, "But, he never disappeared… I don't understand, how could their be two of him? I mean, he's still back home in my timeline; if he's dead here then… I don't understand."
"I know… nothing makes sense. Maybe… maybe we all live different lives… I-I don't know…" His head burned, he couldn't think straight. All he could think was; what the hell was going on?
It was 7am when Lester got into the A.R.C.; sooner than he's been getting in lately. He walked up the stairs to his office and sat down in his chair, then opened the desk drawer. His hand started rummaging through the drawer quickly looking for something that was obviously missing. "Where is it?!" he half yelled frantically; the little yellow pill bottle was gone.
"Looking for this?" Sarah stood at the door to his office, holding the bottle in her hand. Danny came up next to her, holding another pill bottle that they'd found in Lester's desk. Sarah looked at Lester's confused and angry face compassionately. Then she walked to him and held the bottle up as if to display it to him, and she said, "You don't need them, Lester. We're here to help you. It's okay… we can get through this together, yeah?"
Lester gave her a look. "What the hell are you talking about?!"
"It's alright, mate; we know what you've been doing," Danny said.
"Really? You do? And what is it that I've been doing?"
"Smuggling, selling, stealing drugs, and using drugs… well… at least, using drugs; we don't know that you've been doing any of that other stuff but-."
Sarah jumped in to say, "But, it's okay. 'Cause we're going to help you."
Lester paused, looking like he was ready to punch them. "Oh, for the love of God! You're both idiots!" He shook his head in disbelief. "I don't know why I didn't just put Connor in charge of this team! He's probably less of an idiot than you two are." He looked at them and explained, "I'm not smuggling drugs or stealing them or even using them!" He grabbed the bottle out of Sarah's hand. "These are for my wife." He paused for a moment, his jaw tighening. "My wife, she…she's dying. I've had to take care of the kids and her for the past week."
Danny and Sarah glanced at each other. "I'm-I'm so sorry, Lester… we didn't know-"
"No, you didn't. And I wanted to keep it that way." He sighed. "A temporary replacement is coming today. He'll be acting in my position for at least a week while I take care of my personal business. And you two-" he was interrupted by yelling from Connor, who had just rushed in the front door of the A.R.C.
"Danny!! Sarah! Abby!" he yelled. Danny and Sarah ran down the steps to meet him, he was panting heavily and looked like crap. "Shit!" he cursed when he dropped the load of papers he was carrying in his arms. "Where's Abby?" he huffed out as he picked up the papers.
"I don't know, I thought she was still at home." It was Danny who had spoken. "You look like hell, mate. You should get some rest."
He ignored Danny's remark and regarded Abby's absense. "No-" he took a deep breath, trying to catch his breath, before continuing. "She wasn't at the flat. But, nevermind!" He waved his arms, discarding the subject. "I've got something important to tell you guys. Look," He set all the papers he was carrying down on a table and scattered them about. "I've drawn up diagrams of the anomalies, and traced all the different timelines and, with Dian's help, I was able to put down the future times as well. So, it's sort of a visual guide, and it should help us track the anomalies… somehow."
"Okay, but what's this all about? You need to calm down, mate."
"Look, Dian told me something last night that changed the entire way we should be looking at the anomalies. And, after thinking about it all day; I've finally come to a conclusion about what it all means." His grin was as wide as it could be.
"What what all means? You're not making any sense."
"Uh…" He moved his hands through the air in a very Connor-like way. "To make a long story short; Dian is from an alternate reality. But, not of our reality… of Cutter's. The timeline he lived in before this one. A parallel universe to that timeline, if you will. What happened there was that Cutter didn't come here to this timeline; his life happened in that parallel universe the way it would have if he'd never created this evolutionary timeline." He was speaking exactly like Cutter did when he got excited about a new discovery.
Sarah spoke for the first time since she'd come down here. "So… you're saying that there are parallel universes? Like in the movies?"
"Well, yeah, sort of. But, think about it! Look," He pointed to his papers again. "The anomalies must lead back to those universes somehow, and when timelines are changed here, it's different there in the parallel universe. We all live different lives somewhere else! What we need to figure out is… how Dian was able to come through an anomaly and get from one universe to this one, and how she got to this timeline and not her own."
Danny was so obviously confused. "Okay, I think I get what you're saying…" he was unsure.
"You just have to trust me, I know what I'm saying sounds crazy but… it's the truth, and I need someone that can help me figure this out." He paused for a moment. "Cutter would've attacked this chance to understand what was going on here."
"Look, I'm with you, mate. I'll do what I can to help but-"
"No. No, I need someone who already knows about this, someone who knew Cutter and knew about Claudia Brown… I need… I need…"
A familiar voice came from the front door of the A.R.C. "Okay, Connor. What's the big emergency?" Her voice was angry, which was understandable considering she never wanted to come back to this place again.
Connor smiled, looking at her. "Jenny."
"Jenny!" Danny repeated. "What are you doing here?"
"Connor called me, saying that it was a life or death situation and I had to come. Obviously he lied."
Connor looked guilty. "I just thought you might like to meet someone."
She shook her head in disbelief. "I don't want to meet anyone! Connor, I'm done with this place… for good!" She started to leave, and nearly ran into Dian as she came through the door. "Sorry."
Dian stared at her and said, "Mum?"
"Excuse me?"
Connor walked up to them. "Jenny… I thought you might like to meet your daughter."
Jenny spun her head to look at him and stared disbelieving. "What?! I don't- I don't have a daughter." Looking back and forth from Connor to Dian a few times, Jenny started thinking Connor had gone mad.
"Well… technically I guess she isn't your daughter. But, in a way she is… she's Claudia Brown's daughter."
Jenny stood there, bewildered and shocked. She had been put through so much hell over this Claudia Brown…
TBC in Chapter 4!
So, lots of questions were answered in this chapter! Please review! :)
In Chapter 4 we will find out more about Jenny and Dian's relation to each other, the team battle some new creatures, Lester introduces his temporary replacement, and we find out where Abby's gone... and much more. All in Chapter 4! Thanks for reading! :)
