The anomaly wasn't far. Molly-Spratt ran through it first, barking joyfully and obviously thinking that it would lead to home. Sarah and Danny stopped just in front of it and Sarah put her torch out in the gravel before it could burn her hand.

"You ready?" Danny asked as they stared at the bright flickering ball of light in front of them.

"Not really," Sarah admitted. "I'd grown to like this place. But no worries, let's go."

Danny nodded. He felt the same, but there was no use in delaying it so he took a breath and stepped through.

The first thing that Danny noticed was that he was gulping for air. The air here was good: high in oxygen and unpolluted. He hadn't realised how much his body had been craving it until now and he couldn't seem to get enough. He saw Sarah beside him doing the same. The next thing he noticed about their surroundings was that they were in a forest.

He plonked himself down on a log, putting all his things to the side, as he tried to think what the next logical move should be. Sarah joined him and even Molly-Spratt hopped up onto the log, looking a bit dejected that they were still somewhere unrecognizable.

"Well, so far, so good," Danny commented.

Sarah nodded with a smile, "The air is good. We'll feel healthier here and more energetic."

"More growing things too," Danny replied. "Might be able to get something new to eat here. I was getting rather tired of salted crab and seaweed."

"Hold that thought for a bit," Sarah chuckled. "We've got a lot of crab meat left."

Danny faked a groan, "Ah well, if we find something new, Molly can have the rest."

"Danny, do you think there are predators here?"

"Probably."

"Dinosaurs?"

"Probably."

They both fell silent in thought for awhile until Sarah finally sighed, "Danny, can we move away from the anomaly please?"

"Sure, why?"

"It scares me a bit. The light might attract the dinosaurs to this area. Anyway, what if another opens? We'd think it's still this one on the detector. Best to get out of range, okay?"

"Okay, but I'm tired, Sare. Ten minutes to rest?"

"Fair enough, just, let's go before dark, alright?"

Danny nodded and they both became quiet again until Sarah broke the silence for a second time. "Danny, do you hear that?"

Danny listened carefully and slowly became aware that the forest wasn't as silent as he'd thought at first. The sounds coming from the surrounding area were so natural, as though they belonged to the forest, that he hadn't noticed them at first even though they were quite loud. Now he did hear them: groanings, growling, stamping, crashing, and what sounded like birds chirping. Danny stood quietly and nodded to Sarah. "Let's go," he whispered, reaching to give her hand a quick reassuring squeeze before letting go again to pick up their stuff.

They headed out, away from the anomaly. There wasn't a lot of light of day left, but Danny still studied their surroundings as best as he could. The forest they were in did not seem quite like the one where they had last seen Abby and Connor. The trees were shorter and the trunks not as red. Many were not pine trees at all, but rather something he didn't recognize. The ground was different too: drier. There were more large rocks and low bushes. He hoped the difference in scenery between here and the cretaceous also meant different dinosaurs. No raptors would be nice.

Danny stopped when he found a large group of low shrubs growing tightly together and pulled out the knife. "If I can cut us an opening," he said, "We could shelter under here for the night."

Sarah nodded agreeably and began to snap off a few of the smaller twigs that she could get with her bare hands, mostly so she could feel as though she were helping. They left as many branches in place as possible to keep themselves hidden and protected. As soon as they were able to, they crawled in with their belongings and Molly-Spratt. There wasn't a lot of room to move, but they could sit up and they placed themselves in the centre with the belongings all around them as a feeble attempt at an extra safety measure.

"It's actually quite cozy," Sarah commented sleepily as she curled up in Danny's arms for the night, "I like it here."

Danny nodded, his eyes closing in exhaustion, "Yeah, should we set a watch?"

It didn't really matter what she answered though, Sarah knew. They were both too tired to stay awake and it would never happen. "Molly can watch," she replied, eyes closed. "Isn't that the point of having a dog?"

"As long as her barks don't draw every living creature in the area to us."

Even Molly-Spratt though was asleep.


When they woke up, they could see the pale pink of the morning sky through the branches above their heads. Sarah tried to sit up, but Danny tightened his grip and pulled her back down against him. Sarah glanced at him, puzzled, but Danny just grinned and quickly kissed her forehead. "Morning! Ready to see what awaits us?"

"That depends on two things. One: whether or not what awaits us is going to eat us, and two: whether or not you're going to let me sit up."

Danny laughed and let go of her, sitting up himself. Sarah smiled at him and reached for some salted crab, "Ready for breakfast?"


Half an hour later they had polished off the last of the crab, with Molly's help. Danny looked around their small fort, "Alright, let's leave what we can here, it should be safe enough, and go take a look around and try to find some lunch."

"Are we making this our new home then?"

"Until we find something better."

"I like this place."

"It's not big enough. We need something large enough that we can have a fire."

They crawled outside, cautiously, and stood in front of their shelter looking around. None of the noises from the evening before had stopped, but they seemed a bit further away at the moment. When Danny was sure it was safe, he told Sarah to wait and he crawled back into their temporary space to gather up the backpack and a few basic things he wanted to take with them: mainly the knife, stun grenade, and anomaly detector.

Then he slipped the backpack on, returned to Sarah, and offered her his hand as they headed into the unknown.

They'd been walking for about an hour when Molly-Spratt gave a little bark and ran suddenly ahead.

"Dinosaur?" Sarah asked, gripping Danny's hand slightly tighter.

"Perhaps," Danny answered, "But she looked more playful than scared."

Sarah relaxed a bit as they continued in the direction Molly had gone, following her barking which definitely did sound playful now that she really thought about it. They found her a few moments later and Sarah stared in surprise at Molly's new-found playmate.

"I knew it!" she exclaimed. "It was something prehistoric! He lied to me!"

Danny stared at her, puzzled. "Who lied?"

"Connor. I've seen one of these before, on eBay. Connor called it Rex and then denied saying it and said it was nothing more than a baby dragon."

Danny looked back to the lizard playing with Molly, "This is Rex? Why would he lie about that?"

Sarah sighed, frustrated. "So you knew Rex too then? Who is Rex? Connor and Abby both mentioned him, but then Connor denied it."

"They have a pet named Rex, a small dinosaur, but I didn't know what he looked like. Are you sure this is the same kind?"

"Of course I'm sure." They watched the winged lizard and Molly-Spratt bound about in a game that resembled tag. "I found it on eBay and pointed it out to Connor who said "Rex" and then denied it completely."

Danny nodded and sat down on a stump, content to let the animals play for a bit. Sarah remained standing. "Wonder why he lied?" Danny mused. "Or better yet, why the lizard was on eBay." Then he turned to her, "They have three you know."

"Three what?"

"Prehistoric pets. They've kept a couple of the diictodons from the hospital too. Called them Sid and Nancy."

"That's what Cutter called Abby and Connor," Sarah smiled. "He nicknamed them that the day that you arrested Connor."

Danny chuckled, "You should've seen him in jail."

Sarah giggled, but then turned serious again. "Think they made it home?"

"I hope so."

"I miss them, Danny. I miss everyone." She sat down beside him, forcing him over further onto the edge of the stump.

Danny nodded, "Yeah, me too. But we'll see them again someday, okay?"

"You think so?"

"Of course."

They sat silent for a long time remembering their friends, until Sarah suddenly asked, "Where did they get Rex?"

"Found him on the first mission, is what Lester said. It was Connor and Abby who discovered the first anomaly, you know."

"Really? I thought it was Nick."

"Nick was there, but he wouldn't have been if it wasn't for Connor's persistence in getting him there; Connor was the one who knew something was up. He was following through on a weird creature sighting. And Abby found it on her own through Rex. Lester briefed me about the ARC's history when I took over as Team Leader."

"What sort of creature was Connor looking for?"

Danny paused, trying to remember what Lester had said. Finally he shrugged, "I can't for the life of me remember the names, but there was one gentle giant of a plant eater and one giant-sized mean carnivore."

"Well, we've found the Rex, so the other two are probably around."

"You think? Yes, of course, you're probably right. Permian Era, I think."

Sarah nodded, that did sound familiar. She'd heard the word Permian thrown around a lot at the ARC. Suddenly she remembered something else. "Claudia Brown,"

"What?"

"They went to the Permian, Nick and Helen did, and when they came back, Claudia was Jenny. Danny, do you think… do you think we're changing history being here? What if we finally get home and find that none of our friends have ever been born?"

"Then we'll deal with it then. We have enough to worry about here, what with the giant-sized carnivore probably living nearby. We can't deal with the 'what ifs' now too, okay?"

"Okay."

Danny saw she was still thinking about it though, so he reached for her hand again and gave it a squeeze as he pulled her to her feet. "Shall we continue on our quest for lunch?"

Sarah nodded and Danny whistled for Molly-Spratt who came running at once, closely followed by the Rex look-alike. Danny sighed, wondering vaguely if they'd have to put up with two pets in their shelter that night.


After awhile of walking, they came to the edge of the forest and found that the ground gradually sloped down here into a valley.

"Look at them all!" Sarah cried as she stared in wonder at all the small flying green lizards flying overhead. Molly-Spratt barked excitedly, running in circles, but they were all too far in the air to be in her reach, other than her playmate that still stayed close.

"There're some of the giants over there too," Danny said, pointing lower into the valley. Sarah's gaze followed his finger.

"They look peaceful enough?"

"Right now. Hopefully they're the herbivores because there sure are a lot of them."

"I see one munching on a tree," Sarah said, shielding her eyes with her hand. "That's a good sign, right?"

"Definitely," Danny grinned. "No worries then."

"Think we could get closer to them? I think I see a lake down there."

Danny studied them for a bit and then nodded, "Yeah, I think so, if we go slow and quietly and don't act scared or threatening, I think we could. We've nothing to carry the water with though. Sorry, I should've thought to bring the water bottles."

"We'll go back and get them. It's not like we have to rush. Have you seen anything edible yet?"

Danny chuckled, "Do you like your dinosaur cooked medium rare?"

Sarah pulled her hand from his to give him a playful shove, "Abby'd kill you for that comment."

Danny nodded, "Truly spoken, but she's not here. C'mon, we'll find something to eat. I imagine some of the plants here are edible and perhaps we'll find some fish in the lake."

"Yeah, maybe we'll find it chock full of crab."

Danny groaned, "Don't even joke about that, Sarah. Nothing but crab for a month can turn a man right off of it."

Sarah laughed and patted his back reassuringly, "Don't worry, Danny. Crabs are salt water fish."