"Sit!" Jenny said, as she walked into the Ops area with the girl (if you could call a 20 year old a girl) beside her. Crystal rolled her eyes but took a seat on one of the chairs that were scattered around the room for no apparent reason. Jenny pushed her fringe out of her eyes and went to the team, who had all been watching with interst. She walked over to them and Connor opened his mouth to speak but Sarah beat him to it.

"What's she doing here?" She asked, her voice thick with indignation. Jenny held up a hand to her.

"Sarah, chill, OK! Breathe!"

"Good question though!" Nick said, looking at Jenny's hand. She lowered it, self consciously, "Who is she?"

"She's, I think, someone who needs protection! The kind only we can give!" She said, looking from one friends face to the next. She fixed each of her friends with that stare before each one of them visibly broke down.

Abby sighed, putting her hands in the pocket of her leather jacket and leaning around Jenny to look, "Whats her name?"

"Crystal"

"Crystal?" Sarah mimicked, in disbelief.

"Oh, please!" Abby commented. Nick and Connor exchanged a look.

"Is she dangerous?" Nick asked, walking to Jenny's side and turning his back on Crystal.

"Well, she didn't try to escape and as far as I know, she's pretty normal..." Jenny said, leaning into him and resting herhead on his shoulder. To her surprise, he didn't attempt to even put his arms around there, he just stood there like a statue. She looked up at him to see that he was looking straight ahead. Feeling jilted, she pulled away and folded her arms across her chest, scoffing.

"OK, so...do we get to talk to her? Should we have her put in the conference room?" Sarah suggested, clearly trying to ice over the extremely awkward situation, she gestured for Connor and Abby to follow her and they went over to the girl. Jenny turned her back on Nick to walk away and he didn't even try to stop her.

Somehow, that was the worst thing of all.


"So...your from the future...but you got kidnapped and ended up spending most of your life in the past?" Connor said, as if trying to get his head around it. Crystal nodded.

"Yes. I've been over this a million times!"

"Yeah, well it's a little hard to believe! How old are you, anyway?" Sarah asked and Crystal sighed, dropping her head into her hands.

"I am 20 years old...in three months..."

"You're not...what?" Jenny said, feeling extremelytired.

They were in the confrence room. Crystal was sitting at the table, Sarah and Abby sitting opposite her. Jenny was perched on the end of the table and Connor and Nick were standing behind them, the latter having not said a word for the entire meeting.

"Yeah...i figured there's a big difference between being 19 and being 20! Saying I'm 20 makes me sound older, more mature! A real adult!" She stumbled over her words and Jenny stood up, one hand on her hip, the other to her forhead.

"I'm getting a bloody migraine!"

"One thing I don't get..." Nick began, "Is why Helen kidnapped...you? I mean, what relevance did you have to the Anomaly Operation! You didn't even have any link to her!"

Crystal looked like she was thinking. All was quiet for a while and eventually she shrugged.

"Guess she just finally went over the edge, huh!" She said, shrugging and sitting back in her seat.

Jenny didn't know whether she believed the girl or not. All she knew was that here was someone who was as mysterious and maybe as dangerous as Helen and until they found out who she really was, they couldn't get close to her. Jenny turned back to face her and looked over the girls face, her eyes were cast down, her lashes sending long shadows across her cheeks. She glanced up to meet Jenny's eyes with her own brown ones.

"Id there somewhere I could maybe catch some shut eye, for the night, maybe?" She asked, rubbing her forhead with a hand and itching her head with the other. She yawned hugely, emphasizing her statement.

"Sure," Jenny said, "Let me go speak to Lester!"


"You want to let some strange, young fugative sleep in the ARC! Where we keep archives for each and every anomaly we have ever faced and more information that anyone in the entire world will ever, or has ever had?"

"Yeah" Jenny said, simply. Lester folded his hands over his stomach, swinging slightly on his chair, deliberating.

"Fine, but you tell her, any finny business and she's going into one of the holding cells! Got it?"

"Got it!" Jenny confirmed, turning her back on him and marching out of the office. She had to admit, Lester was right, they probably shouldn't risk it. What with all of the information in the ARC, that girl could do allot of damage. Tat reminded Jenny. Crystal had said that she had information that could...what was it, oh yeah, 'damage the ARC' she'd have to find out what that information was. But, she thought, that could wait until tomorrow. She rounded the corner into the conrfence room to see that...nthing much had changed.

Connor had robbed her seat on the table, but other than that all seemed ordinary.

"Lester said you can have one of the ARC's rooms for the night, they're usually kept for eyewitnesses who need to be kept in over night!" She said, slapping her phone in the palm of her hand. She caught Nick's eye and saw him smile, awkwardly at her. She returned the smile, shyly. That would be an awkward conversation later.

"Come on, let's get you to bed!" She said to Crystal and the girl followed her, almost asleep on her feet.