This chapter is dedicated to Auntineenah, for gently reminding me people want to know how this ends. You can all thank her :)
o-o-o-o
In the aftermath left from the overwhelming arm of the law sweeping out of their flat, Connor did his best to pick up the shattered pieces of Abby's heart. He lifted her up off the floor and guided her over to the couch, stroking her gently as her sobs gradually tapered off.
"This is how it happens," she whispered as she was finally letting herself fall asleep. "They barge in and take and they don't care-" Abby moaned and buried her face in Connor's shirt. He made soothing noises and tried to block out how much this reminded him of when he was a kid and got home from school just as his mother found out that his dad had been killed in a freak accident. The hospital had phoned her, and left it to a twelve year old boy to deal with the aftermath.
Connor held her until he was certain Abby was asleep, then he slid out and took a few steps away, not letting his eyes linger on the empty baby swing or hear the unnatural silence of the house. He was dialing the one man that might possibly be able to fix this before he even stepped out of the room.
"This better be an emergency." Lester growled. "If you woke me up because you let the baby chew on your phone again-"
Connor interrupted him. "They took her."
He heard a shuffling sound that might be blankets rustling as Lester replied.
"What? Took her where? Why?"
Connor grabbed his hair and tugged, "I don't know! That caseworker bitch called the police and took Maddy! She said we would have to go to court! Abby's devastated, I've never seen her like this, she's gone to piece, she cried herself to sleep, Abby never ever does that! We have to get her back-"
"Of course we'll get her back." Lester positively snarled. "This has inner-department meddling written all over it. I'll make some phone calls. Connor, I promise, we'll get her back."
o-o-o-o
Lester tossed his phone back on the bedside table and stood up. He didn't need sleep anyway. In the time it took him to dress he thought and discarded a dozen different scenarios before settling on what had the most likely chance of success with a minimum of backlash. If it all worked out, he might actually come out of this ahead in the race of politics.
Of course, if it didn't, he'd probably be unemployed but he'd be a legend. Success either way.
He took a slight bit of pleasure at rousing Becker and giving him what little information he had. Becker was all for an armed assault on wherever they'd taking Maddy, but a slight bit of subtly was called for. Lester texted him Minister Truman's address and a few specific instructions. Foremost of which was to be as sinister and terrifying as possible. Becker would play that to the hilt.
Then he made a delicate inquiry of exactly where Becker had hidden Abby's semi-secret pets and why weren't they safely in the menagerie where they belonged?
o-o-o-o
An hour later Lester waited impatiently in his office for the protesting Minister to be escorted in. He was gratified to note that Naomi Truman was bursting with fury when Becker and his squad of grim faced soldiers hustled her into his office and rudely shoved her at the single chair across from his desk.
She did not sit.
"You! What is the meaning of this? You think you can send your goons out to kidnap people?" She jabbed a pointy finger in his direction and behind her Becker nearly ruined the moment trying not to laugh when she labeled him and his squad 'goons'.
"I'll have your job for this abuse of power, you petty bureaucratic flea-"
"Shut it." Lester cut her off as coldly as he could. "You are here because one of your people has broken the National Secrets Act and you are responsible. You will correct this mistake."
"You can't order me around-"
"You'll find I can and I will and I am." Lester stood up. "You've signed the National Secrets Act, it's required for anyone in your position. We're going to take a walk."
He strode past her with his back straight and shoulders square. Lester didn't have to look to know that the soldiers had fallen in behind her. They were taking a walk. She was angry enough not to ask questions until they stood outside Monty's pen. Lester opened the door and motioned her through. If looks could kill, he would be a floating pile of dust from the glare she gave him as she swept into the dark room.
Lester flicked the lights on. Monty was a heap of abruptly awakened mammoth. The beast cracked one eye opened and reached out with his trunk in the hopes they'd brought him some nice cabbage. His tusks looked especially impressive from six feet away.
"My god..." she raised one perfectly manicured hand to her face. "It's a bald mammoth!"
"Colombian mammoth," he corrected her. "That's what we do here."
"Genetic experiments! What did you do to that poor baby?" She whirled around at him and this time her pointy finger jabbed straight into his tie, mussing it. "This is illegal!"
"No! Perhaps this wasn't the best place to begin an explanation. Come along."
One of the soldiers tossed Monty his hoped-for cabbage and they left the creature contently munching on his midnight snack.
"Sir, if I may," Becker said with absolutely none of his usual insolence, "Perhaps Diana and Charles would be better?"
Lester eyed him. This was almost over the top deference. Becker was mocking him. Still, he adjusted his tie. "I was hoping to break it to her gently, but that would do it. Genetic experiments! Don't be ridiculous."
"Get on with this farce. It's the last few hours you'll spend in government service, I promise you."
"I think not."
Lester led her down past a few widely spaced doors to the very end of the corridor. Becker flicked on the light from the hallway and peered through the window in the door at the bright feeding room, covered with red stains on the cement floor. "It's clear, sir."
They went in. She surveyed the blood stains on the floor and the bars along one wall that separated them from the outside enclosure. The single gate was securely locked with a chain, quite visible from the door into the corridor. It smelled.
"What do you feed in this abattoir?"
The lights in their feeding room had summoned them out the darkness of their pen. Lester pointed outside at the pair of raptors that had stalked up with the stealthy grace of a true predator.
"Them."
She turned, and gasped. "What the fuck?"
The unexpected profanity slipping from her lips told Lester more than anything that he'd won.
He tried to sound as bored as possible when he answered her. "They're some sort of raptor, I can't recall exactly what species. I believe the larger one is the female, and the other is the male. My people have a particular sense of humor and thought it would be clever to name them after royals."
One of the raptors hopefully reached out with a delicate claw and yanked on the gate. It rattled. She jumped. Raptors were surprisingly expressive. It was very disappointed the gate wouldn't open.
"How-"
"We study a natural phenomena called anomalies. Rips in time. Sometimes creatures come through. Sometimes people come through. Sometimes people go through and we've got to rescue them before the anomaly closes and they're trapped with the likes of them. They don't last long, as you can imagine." He inclined his head at the hissing raptors. They were getting angry they couldn't get in and devour the fresh meat. One of them flipped up its hood and positively snarled at the puny humans.
Lester suppress his urge to shudder and kept his imperious tone. "Come along."
In stunned silence, she followed him out into the corridor and looked just as pale as he could hope for. That was the stick, now it was time for the carrot, Lester decided.
"I want to show you one more."
"Do you have a T-Rex back here somewhere?" He heard the tremble in her voice.
"No, no, although someday we might. We've dealt with them before." Airily, he led her down to another section. "Come on, these two creatures are menaces, but not dangerous."
This enclosure was only the size of a large room and a heap of dirt covered the middle.
"Sid, Nancy?"
It didn't take them long to emerge from the tunnels they'd happily dug. They saw one of their most favorite people and galloped over to him like a pair of excited spaniels. Naomi squeaked as they headbutted her shins, desperate for attention.
"They just want a scratch." Lester ignored Becker's smirk as he squatted down and rubbed Sid's head. "They're diictodons. Early Cretaceous. Too friendly for their own good, it's no mystery why they went extinct. Silly little buggers."
She crouched down and hesitantly touched Nancy's back. Nancy arched up into her hand like a cat and wiggled. "They're soft!"
"Yes. They're not bad, as far as dinosaurs go." He let her pat them for a few second and really think about the fact she was playing with a dinosaurs.
"Most creatures aren't as nice as these two idiots. We protect people from the creatures, and we protect the creatures from people. We return them to their own time when we can, but sometimes that's not always possible."
"I see." She stood up and wiped her hand off on her trousers while he started his actual explanation of what was going on.
"Months ago, a woman came through an anomaly from a much earlier time in human history. She had been badly mauled. She also had an infant with her."
"She died before the ambulance could arrive." Becker broke in. "She bled to death right in front of me, Jackson was there also-" he nodded at one of his men. "She wouldn't let us take her baby until she passed out."
"I assume this baby is why your goons escorted me here at two in the morning?" Naomi said dryly as they made their way back to Lester's office.
"Yes. We forged adoption papers for the infant." Lester freely admitted it. "One of your caseworkers has gone above and beyond in the call of duty and taken it upon herself to seize Madeline. I'm given to understand the caseworker believes her to be a kidnap victim. Mrs. Sterling hasn't got the necessary clearance to be told the truth but she's creating paperwork that you're going to have to bury if this isn't corrected quickly."
She faced him squarely. "However the child came into the country, proper procedures have to be followed. You just told some of your employees they could keep the baby like a stray kitten. If they weren't providing a suitable home-"
"If you let this go to court, I swear to you it will get ugly." Lester promised her. "They've done nothing wrong. Look at what your minion did before you start blaming my people for bringing this on themselves."
o-o-o-o
The goon squad kindly gave her a ride to Whitehall instead of her home where they'd roused her a few hours ago. At three in the morning, very few people were about and she didn't meet anyone as she made her way to her suite of offices. It didn't take long to find the preliminary report that Sterling filed, required in any case of emergency removal. There was nothing more embarrassing than a weeping mother on the evening news and the department spokesman being blindsided without any of the facts at hand.
As she read the petty argument for removing Madeline Temple, Naomi felt her blood boil. This was the weakest case against anyone. Honestly, they had a legitimate leg to stand on with the irregularities in the paperwork but to cite a lack of padding on a coffee table as a reason to remove a child? This was outrageous!
She had no doubt at all that Lester would make good on his threat if this went to court and his goon squad would follow his orders, even if they were of dubious legality.
There was proof enough of that already. Waking up to four stern-faced SAS men on her front porch and the fifth leaning on her doorbell was like something out of a spy movie. Their leader, Captain Becker, was still the only one she'd heard speak.
"You have an appointment," he said grimly.
"No, I don't." It was almost midnight. She wasn't going anywhere.
"Yes, you do," he replied.
Now dinosaurs were real and walking around in merry old England. She spared a moment to wonder about aliens and decided she didn't want to know. Paperwork she could squish. This Trudy Sterling woman might present a personnel problem, but she wasn't worth her job if she couldn't cow an underling into line, especially one that removed an infant on such a flimsy pretense.
Honestly, paperwork irregularities could be sorted out without removing children.
Step one, destroy the evidence.
o-o-o-o
Dawn broke. Birds sang. Life went on.
Connor hadn't slept. He sat at the kitchen table and didn't look towards the empty blanket on the floor. His tea had grown cold again and he didn't care. Every few minutes he glanced at his phone. There hadn't been a call or text all night. Lester's promise might as well have been a dream.
Then he heard Abby stirring around upstairs and he stood up to see how she was.
He was halfway up the stairs when he heard knocking on the door. Connor didn't let himself hope when he opened the door. A middle aged brunette woman in a rumpled business suit stared up at him.
"You're Connor Temple?"
"Yeah."
"I'm Naomi Truman. I understand you're missing someone?"
Naomi reached behind her and lifted someone out of cheap car seat. Connor felt his knees go weak as she passed him the grumbling baby. Maddy saw him and her face lit up. Just like quickly, her grumbling noises turned into laughter and she reached for him.
He hugged close and babbled as he yelled for Abby to come and see, Maddy was back. Abby flew down the stairs and shrieked. Maddy shrieked too, and then laughed some more as Abby took her and rocked her, bawling again, this time from happiness.
Naomi guided them all to the couch and shut the front door.
"Now we're going to do a proper home study," she said. "I'll be writing the report."
o-o-o-o
If Abby spent that day at work in the nursery refusing to put Maddy down, well, who could blame her? It wasn't like Emily wasn't capable of caring for the menagerie. She was on the books as Abby's assistant and relished the chance to prove she could do the job.
While Abby was off cuddling the baby, Becker told Connor about their adventures intimidating high ranking government officials. "She called me a goon several times. I was almost insulted. Almost."
Connor laughed and hugged him. "You can't imagine how horrible last night was, mate. I'm so glad it's over. She saw us feeding Maddy breakfast, you know how giggly she is in the morning, and promised she'd squish Sterling like a bug. She said kids are only taken into care if they're in danger. Sterling is just a petty bitch that likes to hurt people. I think she only did it because she could."
Lester stepped into Becker's office and heard that last bit.
"That's exactly right. I just heard from Minister Truman. She's moved that horrible woman into a position that has no contact or control of the children pending a review of her previous work that's probably going to cumulate with her being sacked and possibly charged if she's done this sort of thing before." They all had a cheer at that news, and he smirked.
"She also wanted to let me know that if the Menaces ever reproduce, god help us, she wants one. She used the word, 'adorable'."
Abby appeared in the doorway with Maddy sitting in her arms. "So it's over?"
"It's over." Lester confirmed with a smirk. "No one will bother you again."
She smiled widely and managed a one-armed hug that Lester pretended to tolerate. Maddy giggled and then managed to spit up on his shirt. Lester groaned and dabbed at the mess with a cap Becker left on his desk while Abby apologized and giggled with her daughter.
"That's my girl!" Connor said, grinning, while Becker bitterly protested the use of his uniform to clean up baby sick.
"Life is back to normal then." Lester decreed, abandoning the soiled cap and ignoring Becker's complaining. He called over his shoulder as he left, "Get back to work!"
THE END