Sarah and Danny stopped short when they came in sight of the anomaly. A Terror bird stood in front of it paying no attention to either of them; it kept darting back and forth through the magnetic porthole and looking as though it were fighting with something on the other side.

"I don't like the idea that something there is defending itself so well against this bird," Danny voiced both their thoughts. "What the hell could that be?"

Whatever it was, it seemed content to actually stay on the other side of the anomaly and the bird was seemingly occupied, so they turned their thoughts to getting through.

"Maybe have that last stun grenade ready to go," Danny told Sarah. "There's only one bird, I think with the two of us and the knives and the bird's being preoccupied, we can take it."

"Provided we do something fast," Sarah responded, "Before more…" She trailed off suddenly as something else caught her eye.

Danny followed her gaze and stood in horror as he noticed for the first time the gruesomely ripped apart body of what appeared to have been a human teenager only a short time before. Then he quickly stepped between Sarah and the view, pulling her against him, "Don't look at it, Sare. We can't do anything for him now."

She nodded, shakily. "How did he get so far out here?"

Danny's eyes widened, "The anomaly of course. He'd barely made it through! Sarah, there might be humans on that side! That's what has the bird so mad."

Sarah looked up at him and smiled, "Don't get my hopes up, Danny. He could have travelled through twenty of them to get here."

"Still, we gotta give it a try. Look at his clothes, he's from our time. Let's go quickly before someone locks this thing again."

For a moment their hearts dropped and they thought they were too late as the anomaly suddenly locked in place.

"So it does go home," Sarah whispered, tears filling her eyes at the thought of missing another one.

But then it suddenly shot back open. Danny grabbed her hand and they began to run towards it, when it locked again.

"What the hell are they playing at?" Danny wondered. But he didn't have much time to think about it as the bird came flying at them suddenly instead. With the anomaly locked, they had no where to run to escape. Danny let go of Sarah's hand and took up a stance to fight. Before them the anomaly re-opened.

"Run for it, Sare!" He told her firmly, but she shook her head, standing at his side as the bird bear down upon them.

Her attention, however, was on the anomaly that kept locking and re-opening every few moments.

"Do you think they are testing the mechanism?" she asked as Danny suddenly shoved her to the side and made a slash at the bird's half-developed wing.

The manoeuvre did nothing except anger it further. "Stun grenade, Sare," Danny ordered. "We won't need it through there and we have to do something fast before they lock it permanently.

Sarah nodded and pulled the pin on it, dropping it at the bird's feet and then jumping out of the way herself, followed closely by Danny. The grenade went off, stunning the bird, but Danny noticed that it hadn't been quite within range and, while it was down for the moment, it wasn't entirely unconscious.

"It'll be up in a second," he shouted to Sarah, even though she was standing right next to him. "Run for the anomaly."

They both ran then, their pets following close behind. Just as the reached the anomaly it reopened for them and a moment later they found themselves enclosed in the large ball of light. For a split second, Sarah thought she caught a strange glimpse of a horse pulling a black buggy upon a cobblestone street amidst the refractions of magnetic light before she found herself stumbling out into a small bare room.

Danny didn't notice the strange horse that didn't seem to fit with the surroundings that they'd come out into. The moment he stepped through he heard something like a loud gunshot and felt a sharp pain in his chest. He stumbled forward in darkness before passing out onto the concrete floor.


They were home. That was the only thing that Sarah noticed as she burst into tears, not so much of joy even as of overwhelming relief and exhaustion. She wouldn't have recognized it as being home if it wasn't for the people in the room. The first face she looked into was that of Connor Temple and with a great joy she realised he'd made it back too.

"Sarah!" he cried, his arms enfolding her into a hug as she felt her knees go weak. She collapsed against him in relief, allowing him to hold her up. There were other people in the room, chattering excitedly, but she was too overwhelmed to even look at them yet. She clung sobbing to Connor and for the moment, this was enough. In that moment, she suddenly realised that Danny wasn't with her embracing their friend. She wiped her tears and looked around at him, and found him lying on the ground unconscious being helped by Becker and Abby who were scolding another man she didn't recognize. The man stood back with a sheepish smile on his face.

"Danny!" Sarah cried, pulling herself free of Connor's grip and going to his side, "What's wrong with him? What happened?"

"Matt shot him," Abby glared at the man Sarah didn't know.

Sarah's face must have expressed her horror, and Becker quickly intervened, coming over to give his long lost friend a hug too. "It's fine, Sarah, it was a toy gun. He'll be alright in a moment."

"I can't believe you shot him," Connor said, glaring at the man who seemed to be named Matt. "They've been gone over a year and you just… pop!"

"Sorry," Matt apologized.

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief as none of the others seemed overly concerned about Danny's condition. They weren't calling for medics, and that was a good sign.

Abby had been holding onto Danny's wrist, monitoring his pulse and she looked up at Sarah and smiled. "It is so good to see you!"

Sarah's eyes met hers and she smiled back, "And you. We weren't sure if you'd gotten home or not."

"Took us a year, but we did."

"Your hair looks great. It's so long."

Abby chuckled, "Not compared to yours, it's not."

"I've always had long hair," Sarah replied, but she suddenly realised just how long it was now, falling almost to her hips. "But I could do with a cut," she added on.

Abby laughed, "Fine, we'll skip the meals and bed and take you straight to the hair dressers."

"Screw that idea," but it wasn't Sarah who spoke, it was Danny. Sarah threw her arms around him.

"Danny, you're awake! And we're home!"

Danny hugged her back, kissing her cheek. "We did it, Sare."

"We did," she agreed.

The others quickly bombarded them with questions and hugs. Abby suddenly caught sight of something in the corner of the room. "Rex?" she questioned, turning on Connor. "What's he doing here?"

"Don't look at me," Connor protested.

Sarah smiled. "King," she corrected. "He's been following us a good year and a half. Think Rex could use a playmate?"

Abby had already scooped the lizard up into her arms with a broad grin, and Sarah took that to mean she was agreeing, but they were interrupted suddenly by that dreaded bird call. Matt put his gun to better use this time, aiming at the creature and it stumbled backwards as Connor jumped onto the locking mechanism and sealed it again.

"Why do you keep reopening it?" Danny asked, puzzled.

"We don't. There's something really, really weird with this anomaly."

"It was weird," Sarah spoke up suddenly, remembering. "It went to two places. There was a horse inside and…" the others stared at her, but they were interrupted by Molly-Spratt who suddenly started growling and barking. The others looked around, noticing the dog for the first time.

"What's she mad at?" Connor asked, approaching the small white dog. "What's wrong, Girl?"

"Jess," Becker asked suddenly, "We've got an angry dog here. Can you run a scan for more anomalies again? She could be sensing something."

Sarah and Danny exchanged puzzled looks before Danny asked, "Who's he talking to?"

Connor grinned at them, "Oh we're way high-tech now at the ARC. We've got this brill field co-ordinator and these little gadgets we wear so we can always hear her in our heads. She's kinda like our conscience."

He pulled something from his ear and held it against Danny's just in time for Danny to hear a female voice say, "Thanks Connor… I think."

"Uh… hello?" Danny said, wondering if she could hear him like he could hear her.

"Welcome home, Danny," the voice came again instantly.

"Thanks," he responded.

"Jess, the scan," Matt reminded her.

"Right, sorry Matt. There's nothing else."

Danny handed the ear piece back to Connor who grinned at him, "See, that's Jess. She's nice. We all like her, but especially Becker. He really likes her. He's probably even got chocolate for her in his shirt pocket right now."

Becker glared at Connor and then spoke into his ear piece "Sorry, Jess, Connor doesn't know when to shut his trap... It's caramel, but don't go thinking about that now, we need you focused on the job."

Molly-Spratt was still barking as though she sensed danger, and then they all heard something close by. "It's Ethan!" Matt said quickly.

"Ethan!" Danny and Sarah exchanged a look, suddenly remembering that Danny's brother had made it through to this time earlier.

"Abby, you get these two back to the ARC," Matt commanded. "Becker, help me look for Ethan. Connor, you stay here and try to get this thing locked."

Danny stood up though, "Ethan who?"

"We'll explain later," Abby replied, "We're actually a bit busy at the moment. C'mon, let's get you two cleaned up."

She started leading them out, but Danny held her back. "Abby listen, tell me about this Ethan guy. We ran into an Ethan out there and he made his way back into this time, we think. He was with two women, Charlotte and Emily."

Abby halted in her tracks, "Tell me everything."

A/N: Almost Done! The next chapter will be the final one...