A FEW VISITORS
CHAPTER 4
ABBY
Abby had immediately dragged Connor to the menagerie, to make sure that Molly wasn't about to cause a major crisis by letting a few prehistoric creatures take a stroll around London.
Connor was acting jumpy and weird, but she couldn't blame him.
Two twin kids, from the future undoubtedly, had walked through an anomaly into their lives that morning. But not just any kids. Their kids.
She was absolutely sure of it.
The boy, for a start, was the spitting image of Connor. She never assumed the Temple genes would be that strong.
And the girl? It was seventeen-year-old her, from 1998.
Their names were Sid and Nancy, too— that wasn't merely a coincidence.
So she could understand why Connor seemed... On edge.
And on top of all that, she had a killer hangover.
Abby herself had been freaked out, so to speak. But she had got her head around it, and come to terms with the situation. In fact she was happy, excited even, by the thought that one day she and Connor would start a family.
Connor: not so much.
"Well, Molly's not here..." Abby called over to him as she double checked that the menagerie doors were locked properly. Connor didn't respond. "Connor?"
She found him leaning against a wall and staring off into space. She waved a hand in front of his face, making him jump.
"Yeah? Wh-what? Did you find Molly?" he asked her suddenly, his brain catching up to her upon reawakening. She laughed.
"No, Molly isn't here. Are you okay?"
"Couldn't be better." he said, wide-eyed and clearly not okay.
Abby felt sorry for him. He just saw someone who everybody could automatically tell was his son. It was like he became the father of two seventeen year olds in a matter of seconds.
"Yeah, let's find that little girl so that these weirdoes can go home." he chuckled nervously, standing up straight and rubbing his eyes.
The pair walked purposefully down the hall away from the menagerie, but were stopped short when Sid and Nancy walked around the corner and straight into them.
"Oh... Hi." Sid said. Connor gulped and waved feebly at him.
"Any luck with Molly?" Abby asked them, trying to remain in control of the current situation.
"Err, no. We were going to check the menagerie, but I see you've already done that." Sid said.
"Yeah, she's not here." said Abby.
Sid looked disappointed.
"...Did you want to see the menagerie, though?" Abby asked the boy, before she could stop herself. Nonetheless, Sid's face brightened as she said the words.
"Hell, yes! I wanted to do that the moment I realised where we were!" he cheered excitedly.
Abby found herself smiling, but soon switched back into her sensible self.
"Connor, shall we show our friends here the menagerie? They clearly work at the A.R.C, too..."
Connor's mouth opened and closed like he was a goldfish, trying to think of words to say, but with none forming. He looked from person to person, begging his brain to start a sentence.
"Err... Yeah." was what he finally croaked.
Sid whooped loudly, and sprinted off down the hall. Nancy smiled meekly at Abby and shrugged, before following her down the hall.
Connor waited for a second before his brain could function again, and then trailed after Sid, Abby and Nancy like a lost dog.
"So... Nancy, right?" Abby asked the blonde, who happened to be the exact same height as her.
"Yeah. And you're Abby... Maitland?" she asked in return.
Abby nodded.
"I won't ask you any questions. I know it's prohibited for us to do so on both ends." Abby said.
Nancy nodded in agreement.
"Of course. Prohibited."
They found Sid, having known the access codes to the room already, pressed up against the glass window that allowed people to view the animals safely, staring in awe at the creatures below.
"Wow! Nancy, come look at this!" he squealed. He had the same Yorkshire accent as Connor. Nancy strolled casually over to her twin, grinning when she saw the animals.
"I take care of the animals in the menagerie in our time." Sid said, ignoring the dirty look Nancy shot him when he told Abby this fact. "And the place really hasn't changed all that much, to be honest..."
"Really?" she asked.
"Oh yeah... I see you haven't got the parasaurolophus in yet?"
"Parasaurolophus? Seriously?" Connor asked. Abby felt strangely relieved to hear him speaking.
"Yep. And we have—"
"—Sid! Prohibited, remember?" Nancy hissed, stopping him from continuing.
"Right. Sorry." he mumbled, turning his attention back to the creatures.
"W-What about you?" Connor asked shyly from his spot. Abby and Nancy looked at him.
"Me?" Nancy asked.
"Yeah, you. He runs the menagerie... What do you do?" asked Connor.
She looked at Abby as if asking for permission to answer, before deciding 'bugger it', and telling him.
"I— well, we both— go out on field missions, of course. But me and Jake designed the updated version of the A.D.D. And I programme and run and modify all of the security systems and technology in general." she explained.
Connor smiled slightly, looking a tad relieved. He seemed satisfied with her answer.
"Okay, guys. We better carry on looking for Molly, eh?" Abby told everyone. They all nodded, and promptly left the menagerie.
"Do you like Star Wars?" Connor asked Sid as they were walking down the hallway, pointing to his shirt.
"Like it? I was brought up on it. It's like a religion to me. My middle name is Anakin." he laughed. Connor grinned.
"Please tell me your middle name isn't Leia, or something?" Abby joked, looking over at Nancy. She was just kidding, but then Nancy smiled weakly and shrugged.
"What- it is?" Abby snapped. Connor's smile faded when he saw how disturbed Abby looked.
"Yeah, but it's okay. My other middle name is Jackie, after my uncle." she assured her.
"...You're uncle is named Jack, then?" Abby asked.
There was a silence between them all.
"Busted..." Sid whispered. Nancy smacked him on the arm.
Connor looked much happier by this point, which calmed Abby's nerves a little.
They were all searching the A.R.C thoroughly for the twelve year old who had caused them to meet in the first place, when Matt's voice called them into the other room.
"Maybe he found Molly." Abby said.
"That was quick... It usually takes us a couple of hours to find her." said Nancy.
"It's because we played so much 'hide and seek' with her when she was little." Sid mumbled.
They left the room and soon found Matt and Emily. They had, indeed, recaptured Molly. But now, something else was wrong. Very wrong.
EMILY
"Why did you run off like that?" Emily softly asked the little girl in the oversized pink jumper.
Molly shrugged.
The pair were currently sat on the sofa in the recreation room; Matt had finally found Molly looking through the refrigerator for ice cream, or jelly, or something along those lines.
Matt had left Emily alone to supervise the cheeky little girl, while he called the rest of the team back into the operations room over the intercom.
"According to your friends, you do that a lot." Emily said. Molly smiled evilly.
"I just like to... Look around a bit."
"So you just walk through anomalies, all the time? Without wondering what's on the other side?" Emily asked her.
"Of course I wonder what's on the other side- that's why I go through. And anomalies don't really scare me. We've been stuck in different times once or twice, too, but we always find our way home in the end." she told Emily, thinking nothing of what she'd just explained.
"Who's 'we'?" Emily questioned.
"Me… Mum and Dad… We're all from different times." Molly said, smiling.
Emily nodded.
She was starting to think that maybe this little girl knew her very well.
"Emily!" Matt called, rushing back into the room. Emily stood up to attention. "You better come and look at this."
Emily followed Matt out of the rec room; he seemed panicked- well, as panicked as Matt Anderson could get.
He lead her to the operations room, with Molly following them both closely.
Emily stopped and stared around the room before her.
The anomaly was gone.
"Becker! Jess! Abby! Connor!" she heard Matt shout down various different corridors.
Soon, Becker arrived with Haley in tow, Jess and Jake rushed into the room, and Abby, Connor, Sid and Nancy arrived as well. Derek and Lester and a few soldiers followed shortly.
"Wh-Where is it?" Lester asked them all, as if they'd hidden the anomaly.
"I came in here to call you all over the intercoms and announce that we'd found Molly... But it was already gone." Matt explained.
"It's closed up." Connor mumbled.
Emily glanced down at Molly, who was chewing her lip nervously. Her face was a picture of guilt if ever she'd seen one.
"So... What? These lot are just stuck here?" Lester questioned them furiously.
The kids didn't look so confident all of a sudden.
"Shit, we are." Sid said.
Nancy sought comfort from her twin brother, and was clutching his arm with a tight grip, but all he could do was state this fact to her.
Jake and Haley looked across at each other, and had some sort of silent, worried, telepathic conversation.
Molly shuffled closer to Emily and slipped her miniature hand into Emily's own. She was looking at the floor shamefully, so no one could see her face.
And Derek, not too far away from Lester, shoved his hands in his pockets.
He wasn't even bothered that they were 'stuck'. It was merely a minor inconvenience to him; he'd been in far worse situations at a much younger age, when he was far less capable and streetwise. They'd be fine, he knew.
But he felt sorry for his teammates. They were far away from home, and a couple of them, namely Jake, Sid and Nancy, had never been lost in time before.
He knew how panicked they felt, and that sickening feeling that was rising in their stomachs at that very moment. Trying not to ask themselves the dreadful question of 'will I ever get home?'
"It could be worse." he said, trying to lighten the mood, as he always did.
"How? How could it be worse?" Lester snapped back at him. "You are all stuck here, and now I have to deal with you. This is the last thing I needed right now."
Derek glared at James Lester.
"It could be worse, in that we would be stuck in the Cretaceous. Or the Triassic. Or the bloody Jurassic, with jungles, and deserts, and mountain ranges, and big fucking dinosaurs." he said back, cockney accent stronger than ever. "But we're not. We're stuck here. With good people. In a safe environment. And for that, I'm thankful for."
Haley nodded in agreement.
Lester continued his staring competition with Derek for just another moment, before swallowing his pride. He straightened his tie, and looked around at them all.
"Captain Becker, would you be so kind so as to escort our guests to the interrogation room?" Lester instructed. Becker nodded.
He rounded up the kids, who traipsed over to him glumly, and lead them out of the room.
Silence.
"What do we do?" Abby asked.
"What can we do? We have to keep them here until, hopefully, the anomaly reopens." Matt said.
"No. We can't keep them here!" I can't have six bloody kids running wild around the A.R.C!" Lester hissed at them.
Before she knew what she was doing, Jess had done it again. She had opened her big mouth one moment too soon, without thinking about what she was going to say first, and suggested something she shouldn't really have suggested.
BECKER
"Alright, guys, you just stay in here. Don't worry, we're not going to interrogate you." Becker assured the younger people as they stepped into the interrogation room.
"What's gonna happen now?" Jake asked him. Becker looked at the boy and sighed.
"I... Don't know. But everything will be okay. Like Derek here said, you're in good hands. We'll keep you safe until your anomaly reopens."
Jake nodded.
The last person to step into the room was Molly. She was crying.
Becker wasn't so calm and collected any more.
He panicked. He didn't know what to do. But everyone was staring at he and the twelve year old expectedly.
"LITTLE GIRL CRYING" his brain screamed. "LITTLE GIRL CRYING!"
Not thinking and just letting his hidden paternal instincts kick in, he knelt down so that he was eye-level with her.
"Hey, why are you crying?" he asked her softly. She sobbed.
"It's all my fault. It's my fault we're stuck here. I was stupid and we're never gonna get home." she cried, tears streaming down her face.
Becker's heart just about broke.
"No! Its not your fault, Molly!" he said, taking her tiny hands in his own.
Then, she burst into a giant fit of tears. Without thinking, Captain Becker hugged her; she wrapped her little arms around his neck and cried into his shoulder.
"Shh... It's okay. Really, we'll get you home." he assured her.
Behind him, Haley smiled, almost proudly, at the sight.
All of the kids stood in silence, watching as Molly completely broke down and Becker comforted her.
And it just so happened that Jess was walking towards the room at that very moment, and stepped through the door as the scene unfolded.
When she saw big, seemingly emotionally stunted, soldier-boy, action-man Captain Becker hugging the sobbing little girl in the pink jumper, her knees nearly buckled.
"Molly's upset." Jake whispered to Jess, stating the obvious.
Jess just stared in awe for a moment, before her brain nagged at her, and she tried to remember what she had walked there for in the first place.
"Oh... Well, I have some good news!" Jess said cheerily. "Maybe that'll brighten your mood, Molly!"
Molly raised her head from Becker's shoulder to look up at Jess, and wiped her eyes with her sleeves.
It took absolutely all of Jess' willpower for her to not break down crying as well, hug the living daylight out of Molly, adopt her, and then shower Becker with kisses because he was so perfect.
"Errm... I have found a place for you to stay while you wait for the anomaly to reopen!" she cheered, trying to instil some hope in the kids.
Becker looked up at her in confusion. Was she about to say what he thought she was about to say?
"My house!"
