Day 3

"Traveler 3468 abort mission, resume Protocol 5."

The directive had come from a chubby cheeked red-headed little girl on a bike. Grant quickly knelt down to try and soothe the now distraught girl as she looked around frantically for her parents.

"Well, talk about a last minute save." Grace quipped from the van. The team had been dispatched to locate and eliminate the historian for another traveler team that had appeared to go rogue. Grace had tagged along because they needed a programmer to undo a specific line of coding that had malfunctioned, making the historian just start blurting out random events. Before they arrived, apparently the coding had fixed itself, so that particular traveler was no longer considered a threat.

As they loaded their equipment back into the van and started their journey back, Carly couldn't help but wonder if her son would one day be used as a messenger. Is that why the director chose a single mother with a child who had no other ties to anyone else but a drunk police officer, just so they would have their very own messenger?

Carly stayed lost in her own world until they got back to the garage. "You staying in there all day?" Trevor asked as he reached past her to grab his bag.

"Do you think the director chose this host just because she had a child and could use it as a messenger in the future?" Carly asked him. As Traveler 0115, Trevor had lived longer than most of them put together. Surely he had some kind of insight as to the directors thought process.

"Probably. It would be the smartest choice, that way your team wouldn't have to worry about some random kid accusing you of kidnapping. Of course, that's a moot point now since he's been taken away now." Grace answered carelessly as she exited the vehicle.

Carly's eyes widened at her callousness. She understood that 0027 was socially awkward, but that was kind of brutal even for her.

"Grace!" Trevor admonished before turning to Carly, "I'm sure that's not the reason." he broke off to push Grace into the garage when she scoffed.

"Do you think the director is disappointed because I couldn't keep Jeffrey Jr. with me?" She asked in a quiet voice. Carly didn't often have doubts about her job performance, she was chosen for a reason after all. But if this host was chosen simply because of the child, and now the child was no longer in the picture, was that a bad mark against her abilities?

"No way." Trevor immediately shook his head. He rested a hand on her shoulder, "I'm not sure what the director's plan was for you and your son, but I'm sure he saw this happening and planned for it. Jeff was eventually over written too, right? Well maybe the director planned for Jeffrey Jr. to go to a good family so both of you could do your mission without having to worry if he was okay."

He caught her eye, "You did say he was with a good family, right?" At her nod, he gave his famous grin, "See! All part of the grand plan. Now you don't have to worry about leaving in the middle of the night, or finding a last minute babysitter."

"Thanks, Trev." Carly sent him a smile. She was suddenly grateful for their cheery engineer. Certainly he had dealt with worse in his extremely long life, and he still had the best attitude of anyone she had ever met. Present and future. She wonders if that's part of the reason that 0027 is so drawn to him.

"No problem." He offerd his hand to help her out of the van. "Look, about what Grace said.."

Carly waved him off, "It's fine. I know she didn't…..well no, I know she meant it, but I know that was her weird way of trying to be truthful." She spotted Grace peeking around the corner, looking for all the world like a scolded child.

Carly decided to extend the olive branch, "Thanks for your words, Grace." No way would she be able to call them 'kind words' but the sentiment was clearly there.

Traveler 0027 brightened and bounded out to stand beside Trevor. "Absolutely! And don't worry, the director is brilliant, I'm sure he's already thought of a solution to fix the fact that you messed up his plan to have a messenger closer to the team!"

"GRACE!"