The waves hit the shore far below them as Taylor and Ryan sat back in their chairs enjoying a rare moment of leisure, well Taylor was enjoying it but as he glanced out of the corner of his eye he could see that Ryan looked as bored as anything.

He ground his teeth as silently as he could as he watched the almost bored detached look that his son bore on his face and he caught himself mentally as he thought of Ryan as his son, it was a thought that he had never after losing Lucas thought he would have, never be a father again and that he had outlived all his family but now with the revelation that had revealed Ryan Marshall was his son he had begun to hope that perhaps he would have some sort of father/son relationship that he had never had with his eldest.

"What!"

Taylor had been so caught up in his thoughts that he had not realised that the young man sitting somewhat bored and grumpily next to him had noticed him looking at him out of the corner of his eyes and that he was now studying him as he had been studying him.

"Nothing, I was just thinking."

"Oh it looked like it, sitting and staring at me as you were thinking. What were you thinking that it was a bad idea the two of us being out here alone fishing, after all if I was the traitor you all think I am I could push you off this cliff and no one would be the wiser but fortunately for you I am neither a traitor and I wouldn't push you off the cliff into the water below anyway."

"Well both things are good to know then young man, that you did not betray the colony as you seem to think that was what I was thinking which by the way it was not and that you don't want to push me into the water below."

"Oh don't get me wrong Commander, I would love to push you off this cliff but if I did that I would be guilty of something far worse than killing you.

Taylor stiffened at his words and managed to keep control of his voice or almost control as he snarled at his newly discovered son.

"Oh and what crime would that be although I would think killing your commanding officer is more of a crime than any other."

Ryan sat up in his chair leaning towards his father, as he glared at the older man.

"For starters Commander Taylor, you are NOT my commanding officer any more, you kicked me out of the security force remember and unlike you Commander, I don't want to cause an environmental disaster on this planet because if I pushed you into the water below that is exactly what would happen…SIR."

Ryan threw down his pole in anger and got up moving away from the commander towards the path that led inwards away from the cliff top and his infuriating parent. He had not wanted to come on this father/son building exercise and if he could help it he was not going to sit there any longer and put up with the man glaring at him as if he was nothing but dirt under his boots, it was not long before he had put a distance between himself and Taylor.

Back at the cliff top Commander Taylor sat for a moment in stunned silence at Ryan's outburst, he was shocked a little that the teenager had yelled at him but also a little hurt that the young man thought he did not care about him or at least that was the expression that he seemed to pick up from Ryan's rant.

For a moment he considered allowing the youngster to go off on his own and lose some of the resentment that seemed to be building up within him but he knew better than anyone of the dangers for someone being on their own in the untamed wilderness that was Terra Nova and really Ryan should know better himself after being in the colony for the last two years, he had gone on enough patrols outside of the perimeter to be aware of the dangers surrounding them all.

Growling to himself as he hauled himself up, he had hoped that there would be no issues to upset his precious day of leisure and if there had been he had been sure that it would be something to do with the colony not his son and he was ashamed for a moment as a thought hit him, his brat of a son throwing a tantrum.

Making his way swiftly in the direction that he had seen Ryan take, he made a note to make certain that Ryan would be the one carrying most of the equipment back to the Jeep for this little show of defiance of his but as his thoughts continued he could not help smiling to himself as he thought about the person from whom Ryan seemed to have had inherited his defiance and rebellious streak from, his mother.

Lieutenant Washington had always seemed like the perfect officer to the colony at large and to the majority of people she had been just that but Taylor had been one of the few people to really know her and despite her reputation she had in fact had quite a stubborn and rebellious streak going through her, one of the things that had attracted him to her, not just as a professional soldier but also as a friend and lover.

Her death had broken his heart and he missed her so much, her smile and wit and her strength of character, something that had made the time here on Terra Nova go more smoothly even through to the hard times when he had thought that the colony was not going to make it.

After the portal had been destroyed and the soldiers of the Phoenix force had retreated he had tried to find her body but it was nowhere to be found and for a brief moment he had hoped that she had survived the pulse weapon blast that had killed her but he knew that no one survived a blast of one at close quarters to the face, the force alone caused a body to fly backwards and the injuries that caused was enough to kill a person if not nothing else.

It was not long before he tracked Ryan, the teen had not wandered as far as he had thought he had at first and was sat slumped next to a tree but as Taylor approached he noticed that the lad was alert to his situation and for that he was pleased. The sound of a twig breaking to his left had the commander twirling round and he caught the sight of Ryan out of the corner of his eye getting swiftly to his feet as several figures made their way out of the trees towards the two of them.

XXXXXXXXXX

The commander of the former invading force of the Phoenix group sat in the small almost barren side cave that he had commandeered for his office in the large underground tunnel system, they had been lucky to find this series of underground tunnels and caves when they had been forced out of the colony by the colonists and the destruction of the portal back to the future but they had done the best they could since being abandoned here in the past of the alternative timeline.

Supplies were limited but he had managed to snag a few things for what was now not just his office so to speak but also his living quarters and not far from his 'cave' there was another that he visited quite often. There was nothing of interest to most in that cave or at least that was what his men thought but a few of them knew that there was something that could make the difference to their continued existence here in Terra Nova, they just had to wait for the right time to expose the secret that the cave held within it.

A secret that the commander was now staring at through the strong door that had been constructed to keep the secret in and everyone else out, it would not do he thought to himself as he watched the steady rising of the chest if the woman who lay inside the makeshift cell was to awaken and get away from them, it would ruin all his plans and he had many plans for not just her and more importantly for her son, Ryan Marshall.