"I've got to be in the …armoury. Got to go and do some…-"

"Security stuff." Abby's smirked in the corner of the room as Jess and Becker chorused the last two words together. Becker just went a little bit redder before hurriedly leaving the room.

Connor looked after Becker and then back at the two women with a absolutely bemused expression on his face, " What just happened?" He asked as Abby rolled her eyes.

Over the next few days Jess truly began to settle into her new life at the old ARC. Her days mainly consisted of either helping Connor to build the first locking device (she tried hard not to give too much away; after all it still had to be his invention) or having him help her on the device that would get her to her own time. She spent any time she had free with the rest of the team, and sometimes she could almost kid herself that everything was as it was meant to be. On the surface she looked happy. Or as happy as someone could be in her circumstances.

However, her joy had a flip side. From the moment she had arrived in this time she had known that certain problems were going to arrive, such as knowing when certain people were destined to die. She had tried to ignore it but a constant countdown carried on in her head, counting down the days until 6th April; the day that Nick Cutter would be killed.

Being the field coordinator Jess had had full access to all files made by the ARC and before the secret organisation had been fully reinstated she had made sure to read every single report. She couldn't remember all of the details of every individual mission but she could recall this one as though she were reading it from in front of her. She remembered feeling the sadness as she first read the statement on how Becker, Connor, Cutter and Abby had all been out on call to an anomaly while unbeknownst to them Helen Cutter had infiltrated the ARC.

Connor had even told her once how the team had been locked away unable to help as Cutter went to face Helen. Jess had never met Helen but from the way Connor's face twisted when he talked about her she knew that she must have been an awful person to justify such a strong reaction in such a mild mannered person. The rest of the report went on to say that the Helen had set off a bomb at the very centre of the ARC but her plan had backfired and she ended up being knocked unconscious by the explosion while the ARC burned around her.

The next part of the recount was what had made it stick in Jess's head. Nick Cutter had been told that Helen was still inside the building and had willingly run into the flames to try and rescue her, even through just minutes before she had tried to kill him. He had found her and even managed to get them both half way out of the building before the unthinkable happened. Helen had pulled a gun on her own husband and shot him dead. She had killed the man who had risked his life for hers even though she didn't deserve it.

When Jess had read at the time she had thought it was awful and upsetting but it was the sort of secondary emotions that came from reading about it and not actually living though it.

Even as she looked up from her work and looked at the professor at the other side of the room she couldn't imagine why anyone would want to hurt him. He seemed like a calm man of learning and although Jess had seen his sharp wit she knew him to be genuinely concerned for the people on his team.

She thought out of all of them he and Becker had taken the news of her origins the best. She had expected it from Becker, having seen how he'd teased Matt once he'd found out the man's true time but she hadn't been so sure of Cutter's reaction and she could tell that that was the one that really mattered. As it turned out he had yet to treat her any differently from the rest of his team though it was obvious that they were not so quick to trust her.

Jenny still gave her suspicious glances and though Abby had warmed to her since the creature attack she still appeared curious, edging on wary. Connor's reaction still made her laugh; though he had known her to be from the future for a full week now it didn't stop him from asking endless and pointless questions, always hoping that she would have the answers. Sarah Page had eventually been told and though she had looked stunned for a minute she had eventually replied it was a shame that Jess hadn't been from the past seeing as she herself was an archaeologist, and she said she would have found that significantly more interesting.

As Jess looked around the team as they worked she found herself to be genuinely attached to all of them. Her glances lingered on all of them but in the end it was Becker she had found herself staring at.

She guessed some things never did change.

Ever since the day when she had woken up in the medical bay he had spoken barely a word to her unless she sought him out first. The times when she could actually get him to talk were wonderful. It almost felt like she was back home as she teased him and engaged in the familiar banter. But other than that he just seemed to have no desire to even look at her, in fact, at one point she was sure she had seen him turn the other way in a corridor just to avoid her. It had hurt slightly but she thought it made it easier in the bigger picture. She was going to have to leave the team soon and she didn't want to find herself too fond of anyone.

It tugged at her heart to say that she had to leave but she knew it to be true. She couldn't be here for Cutter's death. For one thing she couldn't risk changing the future in too big a way and for another she dreaded to think what would happen if Helen found out she was from the future. She had to stay away or get back to her own time.

The only problem was that as she looked at the device that she was working on that should (in theory) be able to get her home even she could tell that there was no way she would be able to get this finished in time.

"Hiya, how's it going?" Came a voice from behind Jess's shoulder. She started at the sudden noise but smiled when she saw it was Connor.

"Not too bad I think." She said before frowning, "It still needs a lot of work though, I don't know if I'm going to get it finished in time."

"In time for what?" Asked Connor, "You've got loads of time, there's no rush!"

Jess thought frantically for a second; she couldn't let on that a major event was going to happen and she wanted to be gone before it did, "Just used to working on a deadline, I guess." She said in way of an explanation with a lame smile. She was glad that she had slipped up when Connor was there; she had a feeling that the others might be a tad more suspicious and not as pacified with such a weak explanation.

When Connor wandered away again to resume working on the locking device Jess looked down at the machine in front of her in despair. There was no way it would be ready before Cutter's untimely demise and she couldn't be here for that. Nor could she leave and leave her project here, as soon Helen would turn the building she was standing in to ash and shattered glass. As far as Jess could see there was only one solution. And she utterly despised it.

….

A/N- I hope you liked I, now I know I promised the entirety of one episode in one chapter but the chapter was shaping up to be entirely too massive; so I split it up. They'll all be uploaded at the same time so I hope you don't mind! Please review and keep reading…

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