Author's Note: Yay! The gang is all together again!


That's long enough, Quinn.

Becker was surprised to find an unexpected twinge of jealously creep up as he watched Sarah hug her long-lost team member. But anyone would have to admit that Danny Quinn's hands lingered just a little longer than necessary upon her back...one creeping down to rest at the small of it.

Becker narrowed his eyes, and then shook off the unwarranted envy as the two broke off the hug.

Abby had hugged him, jumping on him, practically knocking him off his feet, and Sarah hadn't been an iota upset about that. Why was he being unreasonable about nothing?

Maybe because he had noticed long before the way Danny sometimes looked at the female archaeologist. It hadn't bothered him then, but he hadn't even considered Sarah anywhere in near the context he presently held her. But if he didn't watch himself, he was very likely to become territorial.

Sarah would definitely not appreciate that.

"Connor," Becker acknowledged the somehow even-scruffier-than-normal looking young man who had approached him with a happy smile lighting his face.

Goddamn it.

Fine.

Becker entertained his long lost teammate's desire for a hug. But oh, did he need to instruct the boy on the proper execution of a male-male hug. i.e. minimal amount of body contact, either by clasping hands in front or the side/shoulder tap. None of this full on, arms wrapped all the way around him shit.

"How long have you been here?" Becker asked after regaining his composure.

"Actually, Abby and I almost got trapped in the Cretaceous," he explained, shrugging it off, apparently with some difficulty. "But Helen left this behind." He waved about the device Becker had last seen in Helen Cutter's crazy hands.

"Oh wow! Is that it?" Sarah asked, plucking it out of Connor's hands in her fervor for technological exploration. Becker suppressed a chuckle over Connor's frozen look of surprise, hand still held in the air as if the device remained in his grasp. The curious glint in Sarah's eyes quickly turned to a frown.

"It's broken," she announced.

"Out of juice, actually," Connor corrected, plucking it back out of her hands. "Otherwise we'd just have..." He made some sort of gesture that was supposed to be indicative of something Becker had no idea what. "...popped back home."

"Look what we cobbled together back at the ARC," Sarah proudly produced the rather low-tech version of Helen's futuristic device. For how impressive it was to the layman, it might as well have been built of Lego. Connor's eyes lit up nonetheless. Apparently, he could see past the electrical tape and exposed wires.

"I don't know about the rest of you lot, but I'd sort of like to go home now," Danny Quinn interrupted the geekery that threatened to incapacitate the rest of the group with boredom.

Becker couldn't hide his grateful sigh of relief.

"Let's move out."


A/N: What's going to happen when they get home? …