STEPHEN
Cutter knocked and entered. "We ready to go?"

Stephen looked up from his desk. "Yeah, sure," he answered. "Have you got everything?"

"I don't have anything to get," Cutter replied frankly. He'd taken his watch and wallet with him through the anomaly and that was it.

Stephen nodded. "All right. Let's go." Cutter stood aside for him to move out of the office. Stephen locked the door and slipped the keys back into his pocket, and they headed out.

"Can I ask you something?" Cutter asked on the way to the car.

"Of course."

"What do you do at CARI, if you're not on active field duty?"

Stephen's mouth twisted into a bitter smile. "I do nothing. I sit at my desk. I read the reports Connor prepares, but can't make any sense of them – they're all just data curves, predictions, theories. I hear about all the creatures Jones and his men get to encounter, the people they save. I think too much. I don't need help." He stopped talking for a moment to open the door to his car and transfer himself in; Cutter obediently stood off to one side and didn't offer his assistance.

As they drove the short distance to his house, Stephen continued to talk. "I don't even know why I'm there most days. I think Claudia and Lester only kept me out of pity. I'm useless, really." He glanced at Cutter in the rear view mirror; the professor was staring out the window. Stephen felt a surge of anger that he knew wasn't directed at his old friend, but he spat the words anyway: "Are you even listening?"

"I'm listening," Cutter replied, not turning from the window.

"Any reason why you won't look at me while you're listening?"

Cutter turned his head in an exaggerated motion to meet Stephen's eyes in the mirror as they flicked up from the road again. "I'm looking now," he said.

Stephen gave a short laugh, frustrated, hurt. "Look, you asked, that's all. I wouldn't have done the whole pity party thing if you hadn't asked for it."

"Don't get angry at me," Cutter said defensively. "None of this is my fault."

"Did I say it was?" Stephen demanded. He turned a corner a little too fast, throwing himself tight against the seatbelt. "I'm sorry I brought it up, all right? I'm not asking for your pity, just... a little sympathy would be nice." He couldn't understand why Cutter was behaving this way. He'd been gone for three years, but had their friendship before that point meant nothing to him? There was a voice that was whispering in the back of his mind, over and over: he knows, he knows, he knows. Stephen did his best to block it out; Cutter had no reason to know anything if Helen hadn't told him, and he'd said that they'd only spent a short amount of time together. Surely, Stephen reasoned, if Cutter had known, he would have said something.

"Stephen," Cutter said levelly. "You have my sympathy. I'm sorry that this happened to you."

It was the closest thing to an apology Stephen would get from Cutter, he knew. He nodded, his eyes on the road again. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"The spare room's that one," Stephen said as they entered the house, pointing to a door at the end of the hall. "I'll get you some clothes. Are you all right with leftovers for dinner? I don't really feel like cooking."

"Yeah, sure." Cutter stifled a yawn. "Can we eat early?"

"Yeah." Stephen looked concernedly at his friend. "You all right?"

Cutter nodded. "Been a long few days."

They were quiet over dinner, each of them caught up in their own thoughts. Stephen shot a glance at Cutter whenever the other man wasn't looking, trying to discern whether or not he really did know and was just keeping it from him. He couldn't quite tell, though; Cutter mightn't have been very social, but he knew how to keep things to himself. Stephen vowed for what was probably the fifth time since Cutter had returned just to forget about it like he had for eight years while Helen was gone.

Helen. He wondered where she was. He wondered if she was all right. He wondered if she missed him the way he missed her, sometimes.

"Did you hear about Evelyn?" Cutter asked.

Stephen shook his head. "Is that the girl?"

"Yeah. She comes from another universe; she's been travelling for a while. She's told us a lot of really crucial information – only certain people can travel in between universes, for one thing. She's one of them, obviously, and so am I. I'm going to get her to look at the rest of CARI's staff over the next few days, if she can."

"How can she tell?" Stephen asked.

Cutter shrugged. "She just can. Things are different in her universe. Not everyone can see the anomalies, but she can, and she can tell who has the aura, too."

"The aura?"

"The thing that lets people travel between universes."

"Right." Stephen was silent for a few minutes, still trying to wrap his mind around the whole parallel universe idea. "You said she's been travelling for a while? Has she been by herself the whole time?"

"Yeah. She's incredibly resourceful."

"What are you going to do about her?"

That stopped Cutter for a moment. "What do you mean?"

"Well, she doesn't belong here," Stephen said. "Are you going to send her back to her own universe?"

"I... don't know," Cutter answered slowly. "She can't tell where the anomalies lead any more than we can, so it could take her years before she finds it again. And she knows a lot; she can be a lot of help to us. I think we should keep her."

"Keep her?" Stephen grinned. "Who's going to keep her? She doesn't have any family here, Cutter. Who are you going to get to look after her?"

"I will," Cutter said. The speed and simplicity of his response took Stephen aback; he'd never expected his friend to commit to such a thing. "Dr Shepard said I'm the closest thing she has to a legal guardian. Look, Stephen, I'm not going to throw a little girl into an anomaly and tell her to find her own way home. Maybe if she wants to leave, I'll let her, but if she wants to stay, I will let her do that too."

"Right." Stephen smiled to himself. He knew Helen had never wanted children, but he had always suspected otherwise about Cutter. He might have hated teaching, but he was a romantic deep at heart.

"You want the first shower?" Cutter asked abruptly.

"No, you go ahead. I'll find you some clothes and a towel."

"All right." Cutter stood up and picked up his plate to take it to the sink. "Hey... listen, Stephen."

"Hm?"

"I'm sorry about what happened in the car. I'm just... struggling a bit. With the whole timeline thing." He hesitated, and Stephen almost smiled – this was the Cutter he remembered; absolutely shocking in social situations. "Thanks for letting me stay with you. For a bit."

"No problem," Stephen replied. Cutter went to shower.