Tru hurried into the apartment building, a thousand questions running through her mind, starting with what in the world had her brother gotten mixed up in now.
Hurrying up the stairs she saw him standing just outside of the door to one of the apartments, no one else was in sight.
"Thought I'd better wait out here," Harrison said by way of greeting. "Just in case the day rewinds before you want it to."
Tru smiled at her brother's words, he was really starting to surprise her more and more often with his astuteness.
"You said Carrie was dead," Tru said in a low tone, just in case there was someone listening out of sight. "What happened, and what were you doing here?"
"I told you I was working," Harrison whispered back. "I just had to keep an eye on this woman, Natalie Gallagher; just follow her movements for a few hours while Dean was at the game."
"And?" Tru prompted when Harrison hesitated.
"And that was it," Harrison continued. "If she left the apartment I was to call Dean and tell him where she went."
"So how did Carrie end up here?"
"She just turned up outside, I recognised her and followed her in. She was having a fight with Natalie, loud enough to draw one of the neighbours out of her apartment to see what was happening. Then Natalie shot her and ran off."
"And you called me and waited here," Tru concluded, wondering briefly if her younger brother was going to be in trouble for letting the woman he was supposed to be following slip away so quickly. Not that he had had any choice in the matter, but she didn't know how important his assignment was.
"That 'd be about it," Harrison nodded.
"Do you know what they were arguing about?"
"Something about black market drugs and Natalie doing time in prison while Carrie didn't."
"What?" Tru asked in shocked surprise.
"I know," Harrison said with a shake of his head. "I wouldn't have thought it of her either."
"Well if there's nothing else…" Tru pushed open the door and went into the room, leaving Harrison standing in the doorway behind her.
Carrie's body was lying on the floor, her eyes open and staring upwards towards the ceiling. Tru glanced over her body with a clinical detachment, taking in the bullet wound and the colour of her skin which denoted how recently she had died.
Tru didn't have to wait long before Carrie's head turned slowly in her direction and she whispered the words "help me". Tru took half a breath before the day rewound and she awoke in her bed.
She reached for the phone and dialled the first three numbers of Davis's number before she replaced the receiver down. For this she would have to see him in person.
Jack woke up from his own rewind and felt an uneasiness at what he had seen as the day had rewound. He felt slightly sick as he sat up in bed and the full ramifications of what had happened sank in.
He reached for the phone to call Carrie, but stopped himself before he had finished dialling her number. He couldn't tell her that she was going to die today, he couldn't tell her that Tru was going to try to save her, and worse, that it was his job to make sure that Tru failed.
Carrie knew what his job was, but even so he could not bring himself to even imagine the conversation he might have to have with her before the day was over.
"You want me to go through private files at dad's office for you?" Harrison asked from his seat across the table from Tru in the café where they were eating breakfast.
"It's your office too," Tru pointed out with a smile. "You could be doing extra research."
Harrison still looked uncertain as he nodded in agreement and Tru felt a twinge of guilt at putting her brother into the position where he might have to lie to their father, especially considering how well they had been getting along in the last few months.
She wondered whether to tell him that she had changed her mind but there was a life at stake and the best way to find out about Natalie Gallagher's past was to go through the files of Richard Davies and see what it was that he knew about her.
"We've got a problem," Jack said without preamble as he walked into Richard's office, making sure this time that he carefully closed the door behind him.
"Didn't I tell you to keep your distance?" Richard asked with a glance at the closed door and a glare at Jack.
"Our mole's in trouble," Jack began but Richard cut him off almost immediately.
"I have someone on it already," Richard interrupted. "I'm having Natalie Gallagher followed 24 hours a day; she won't get near Dr Allen."
"She shot her dead last night," Jack said abruptly.
"I take it she asked Tru for help?" Richard asked. Jack nodded in response.
"What do you suggest?" asked Jack, as Richard remained silent in his thoughts.
"It changes nothing," Richard replied with a casual shrug. "It's unfortunate that we should lose her but the rules are there for a reason. You've come far too close to breaking those rules already."
"I thought you'd say that," Jack said. "It's going to be hard though; Davis will be all the more determined to keep his new love from dying, Tru will be doing everything she can to save her, and somehow I doubt the good doctor will be willing to help us today."
"I would advise against telling her she's going to die," Richard said with a thoughtful expression.
"I didn't intend to," Jack replied as he prickled with indignation at the thought that Richard thought he might. "Self preservation is one of the strongest instincts and I don't think Carrie's committed enough to the cause to go quite so far as to kill herself to make sure that the day ends as it should."
"You're going to have your work cut out for you," said Richard, his expression serious. Jack looked back across the desk before standing up to leave.
"I do like a challenge," he said just before he opened the door to leave.
"Just make sure that you rise to it," Richard called after him.
"Okay, come on," Harrison said as he walked down the corridor of the office after checking the coast was clear. Tru followed close behind him and tried to look like she was supposed to be there too.
"Hey, Harrison," a voice called from through one of the open doors that they passed and Harrison came to an abrupt halt, Tru nearly walking into him as he stopped.
"Is that Dean?" Tru asked under her breath.
"That's his name," Harrison replied, in a tone that said he had been trying to put a face to the name. "How 'd you know?" he asked before realising the obvious answer. "One of these days you're going to slip up and introduce yourself to someone you've never met, you know?"
"I probably already have," Tru replied with a grin and a roll of her eyes, as Dean came out into the corridor to speak to Harrison.
She stepped back slightly as Dean asked Harrison to cover his assignment whilst he was at the game; she looked at her brother and noticed his unease when Dean commented that he could help make things easier for him around the office. As soon as Dean had returned to his office she slipped her arm through her brother's and gave him a quick squeeze in support. She ignored his embarrassment as he unhooked his arm and looked down the corridor, clearly wondering if anyone had spotted his sister getting overly emotional.
"This way," he said gruffly as he moved briskly down the corridor. Tru shook her head and smiled as she hurried after him, making a mental note to speak to him later about how he was getting along with the rest of the workers at the office.
They came to a halt outside a door marked ARCHIVES and Harrison ducked inside, checked the room, and waved Tru inside.
"Where do we start?" Tru asked as she took in the vast amount of filing cabinets in the spacious room.
"How about here?" Harrison suggested, pointing to a cabinet marked CLIENTS: E-G.
Tru shrugged, opened the cabinet drawer and started flicking through the files. There was nothing under Gallagher.
"Could it have been brought out of storage?" Tru asked.
"Sure," Harrison replied. "Someone might have wanted to look at it since she's back in the city."
"Whose client is she?" Tru asked.
"Well Dean works directly for dad, same as I do," Harrison frowned.
"So dad could have it," Tru said as she continued to look around the room to see if any of the other cabinets might be of use.
"I can ask him if you like?" Harrison suggested as he followed Tru around the room whilst glancing occasionally towards the door.
"No," Tru quickly vetoed that idea. She knew that Harrison was getting on much better with their father than he ever had before, but something still stopped her from getting close to him and she still recalled that he had once thought her a murderer. Neither their father, nor Harrison remembered that particular day as the events had vanished from their memories when the day had rewound, and she had not wanted to tell Harrison about that aspect of the day, not when he was finally getting to know the father he had always wanted.
But she remembered as clearly as if it was yesterday, and she had no intention of asking their father for help again. She had made it this far without him and she would continue to manage.
"You okay?" Harrison asked, bringing Tru out of her morose thoughts and back to the problem at hand.
"Yeah," Tru said, shaking her head as though to shake out the disturbing memories. "Do you know what dad's schedule is for today?"
"Sure, why?"
"Is he going out of the office?"
"Not until lunch," Harrison confirmed. "You're not thinking of…?"
"It won't take long to quickly look and see if he has a file in his office," Tru said as she glanced at her watch. "We'll just wait until he goes out, then we can go in."
"You're leading me astray again," Harrison joked as they left the archive room and headed back down the corridor.
"If you get fired on account of me, I'll buy you lunch," Tru replied with a grin.
"You missed class again," Avery said when Tru called her half an hour later to find out if her absence had been noticed. "Another emergency?"
"You know it," Tru replied, keeping things vague. Avery had already told her that she had spotted things about her that were unusual and the last thing she wanted was to give her any more odd occurrences to add to those she had already spotted.
"Work right?"
"Family this time," Tru said. "I had to go to my brother's office urgently."
"Don't blame me," Harrison muttered from beside her on the bench outside of the office. "I don't want all your friends thinking I'm some sort of screw-up."
Tru ignored him and turned her attention back to the phone call. "Did the Professor say anything?"
"Something about you should have made a New Year resolution to commit yourself to the course."
Tru rolled her eyes, not needing to imagine what he had said. It seemed that no matter whether she was there or not, she was still being criticised.
"Can I borrow Jensen for the evening?" Avery asked.
"Sure," Tru replied. "We can have dinner any time."
"I'm not going to ask how you know Jensen was planning a surprise dinner for the two of you," Avery said, and even over the phone Tru could hear her smugly gloating at catching Tru out once again.
"You know Tyler can't keep a secret," Tru replied in an effort to cover up her error.
"Yeah, I know that," Avery agreed. "So does Jensen which is why he didn't tell him."
"Well if he didn't you must have let it slip to him," Tru suggested. "You know you can't keep a secret either."
"You're right about that," replied a laughing Avery. "I guess I must have let it slip to him, but I'd have sworn I didn't."
"I'll be sure to look suitably surprised when he manages to get the surprise organised," Tru said.
Tru ended the call and leaned back on the bench, her eyes trained on the door to the office as she waited for Richard to leave.
"You think she'll figure it out?" Harrison asked. "She seems pretty smart."
"I don't know," Tru said with a sigh. "She notices things and remembers things as well as I do, but reliving days isn't exactly something that…"
"…happens to anyone," Harrison concluded as Tru's voice trailed off. "Why did you never tell Lindsay?"
"I don't know," Tru replied as she considered whether things would have been different if she had confided in her best friend about her unique ability.
"It might have made things easier," Harrison commented.
"I'm sorry," Tru said as she turned to look at her younger brother. "If I had told her maybe you two would have still been together."
Harrison laughed openly and Tru felt relief at not seeing the shadow that used to cross his face whenever Lindsay's name was mentioned. "You know we were wrong for each other," he said when he had finally stopped laughing. "Now Avery on the other hand…"
Tru rolled her eyes and groaned dramatically at the thought of her brother hooking up with another of her friends.
"Seriously Tru," Harrison said in a tone that was as serious as he ever could be. "It might be good for you to have a woman to confide in about all this, instead of just me and Davis."
Tru considered his words thoughtfully as she realised that it would be a change to have a female perspective on things. The thought brought her quickly to Davis's suggestion that Carrie be told about her secret and she felt the same unease as she always did at the idea. Then she considered the possibility of Avery knowing and realised that the instincts that balked at the idea of Carrie knowing had no such qualms when it came to Avery. It was an idea worth considering.
"Have you told Davis about Carrie?" Harrison asked with open curiosity.
"Not yet," Tru admitted. "I wanted to make sure that we had all the facts before speaking to him about her. He's very protective of her and if we've got it wrong…"
"Well here's our chance to find out those facts," Harrison said as he pointed towards the door. Tru looked to the office and saw that Richard was leaving with two of the other partners in the firm, now was their chance.
A/N - I don't know if anyone is still reading this story. Even after some weeks there is not an indication that anyone has even read the second chapter. I hope that people are still reading, if you are please try to spare a minute to leave a review to tell me that you are and what you think. I will finish posting the story here no matter what (since I hate seeing unfinished stories). But if it still appears that no one is reading I won't post future stories in this series here.