Once Abby had left what they were now calling the observation room to seek sanctuary with the animals in the menagerie, someone else took her place. With the lights switched off, the glass took on a mirror-like surface to the occupants of the quarantine bay, giving him a chance to stand and watch without being watched himself.

Until the door behind him opened to admit another visitor entry to the room.

"Something wrong the lights?" Becker, the one who belonged to this time, moved to stand beside him without turning them on. He followed his counterpart's gaze and frowned when he noticed the subject of the intense stare. "Is there something else I should know?"

His counterpart barely glanced at him, but Becker could see his lips twitch in a humourless smirk in the reflective surface of the glass. "You already do. You just don't want to admit it."

Deciding to leave the cryptic comment alone, Becker instead stared through the glass at the room's residents. Connor looked immersed in the laptop screen in front of him, his brow furrowed as he focused on what he was doing. Sarah was half-heartedly leafing through one of the many magazines she'd been given to catch her up on current affairs, frowning as she no doubt struggled to recognise half of the names printed in the glossy pages. And Jess…

Jess was sitting on her bed, staring at her own laptop though Becker could tell she wasn't actually seeing what was on the screen in front of her. There was a distant expression on her face, one he didn't see often but sometimes caught a glimpse of on quiet days when she allowed herself to get lost in her daydreams at the ADD. The only difference was, when it appeared on her face at the ADD it was usually accompanied by a little half-smile that made him certain whatever she was thinking was good. Now, though…

"We can't waste any more time," his counterpart said suddenly, his tone brusque. "The longer we wait…"

"They've only just started working on it." As much as he was battling with his own sense of urgency, Becker found himself defending Connor and Jess. "Give them a chance."

"Giving them a chance last time meant waiting until it was too late." Tearing his gaze away from the glass, future Becker met his younger self's gaze evenly. "Do you really want to take that risk?"

Unable to maintain eye contact for long, the younger man returned his gaze to the occupants of the room. "Danny might make it back in time."

"He won't. Not unless we start looking for him." The older Becker grimaced and ran a hand through his hair. The simple band of gold he wore on his finger glinted. "There's only one way to save her, and that's to go to the future ourselves."

"You're married." Becker frowned, turning away from the window to face his counterpart. "Does your wife know you're here?"

A strained smile quirked the corners of the older man's mouth. "In a manner of speaking."

"And she doesn't mind?" Becker quirked an eyebrow. "That you're here primarily to save…?"

"My wife?" Future Becker smirked at the confusion on his younger counterpart's face. "I'd say she has no objections to me being here to save her but you're welcome to ask."

Quickly looking between the older man and the young woman sitting on the bed in the other room, Becker's frown deepened. "Jess is your wife?"

"Yes." His counterpart answered without hesitation. "I don't think she's realised it yet, though. She seems to think… Well. You should know what she thinks."

"She thinks there's something between Sarah and me," Becker answered slowly. Subconsciously mimicking the older man, he ran a hand through his hair. "Which is ridiculous, but means she thinks that Sarah…"

"… is your wife. When really she is. Jess. She's your wife. Our wife. And that sounds… weird." Future Becker shook his head. "Matt tried to get me to stay behind, said my being here might change things and not in a good way."

Becker shrugged a shoulder, neither agreeing nor disagreeing, still trying to come to terms with the knowledge the ring on his future self's finger had been put there by Jess. "How… I don't understand when you got married. If she's dying…"

There was a pause. Future Becker turned his attention back to the woman on the other side of the glass. "It was the only way."

"The only way to what?" It hadn't saved her; his future self wouldn't be here if it had.

"To make her believe how I felt about her. I'm still not sure whether she really knew or just said she did." Future Becker shrugged a shoulder, the pain visible on his face and audible in his voice. "It took too long to convince her that I wanted to marry her out of love and not pity. We didn't have long together, not long enough by half."

"And that's why you're here? To have longer with her in case she can't be saved?" Becker narrowed his eyes, realising that the sudden surge of jealousy he felt was stupid when he was effectively talking to himself but unable to bring himself to care. If anyone was going to spend time with Jess... if anyone was going to...

Future Becker shook his head, turning away from the glass with visible effort to stare at his counterpart. "I'm not going to get in your way. You're the one who needs to convince her how we – you - feel about her this time. I'm here to try and make sure that when you do, you get longer with her than I did."

Becker stared at him in silence for a few moments, his gaze straying back to Jess without conscious thought. "I... Married? We haven't even... We're not..."

"You're not in love with her?" Future Becker snorted humourlessly. "Trust me, you might think it's easier to lie to yourself about that but it's not. Losing her hurts like hell regardless, and nothing else matters after that."

Becker gazed at Jess, his heart beginning to pound in his chest at the thought of a future without her.

A world without her.

What would it be like, he thought, to wake up in the morning and know she was gone? To walk through the hallways of the ARC knowing someone else would be sitting in her chair? To hear someone else's voice in his ear, feeding him information and advice while he was out in the field, knowing that it wasn't because Jess had had to leave her desk for a moment but because she wasn't there?

Never hearing her laugh, seeing her smile. Making her blush, hearing her nervous ramblings. Never knowing what it was like to kiss her, hold her… Never being able to learn about her childhood, about the things that had happened to shape her into the woman he…

It made something in his chest ache painfully, an emptiness spreading through him, churning his stomach as his mouth went dry.

"What is it you think we should do?" He asked eventually, his voice low.

His counterpart stared at him with equal parts understanding and determination. "We try and find the future ourselves. And we take Jess with us."

Hmm?