Chapter 12

Connor silently watched Cara as she prepared him some food. He just couldn't believe he had made it back here, but more importantly back to her. He remembered being told that once he left this place his memory would be sketchy if not altogether gone about his time spent here.

It was shortly after they had found the anomaly that would take them home to their own time that he had met Cara. He had gone through the anomaly the same way he had done hundreds of other times, but where he ended up was altogether different.

After he stepped through the lights he was immediately thrust into an unknown world. He was still having problems with this broken ankle and tripped onto the green grass a soon as he had stepped through. But this wasn't what caused him to struggle after he landed on the ground. It was his breathing that was giving him distress and as many times as he tried he couldn't catch his breath.

He started to panic with every gasp for air and eventually passed out. When he woke up, uncertainty of where he was or what was going on filled his mind, but it all melted away when he saw her. She had the look of an exotic beauty from a far off land, which was enough to make him wonder if he was dreaming. But her reassurance calmed him down enough to fall back to sleep.

She stayed with him over the course of the next couple of weeks as he struggled to adjust to his new surroundings. While he was recovering his chest continued to hurt with every breath and he somehow ended up with an infection in his lungs. She had said the inability to breath normally was typical for outsiders when they first got here, but for some reason he was having a harder time of it than most. It was almost another 2 weeks before he was able to finally get outside and see where he was.

By the time he got outside his ankle had healed, but it was difficult to walk on due to his forced convalescence. It took a several days before he was able to walk without the help of a cane and another week before his limp went away.

The whole situation also took quite an emotional toll on him. His memory of where he had come from was finally starting to come back to him. He was told this is what happens to outsiders as they experienced an imbalance in their brain causing some of or all of their memories to shift. Connor had not understood any of this when it was explained to him, but he soon began to figure it out. He also started to remember his friends and desperately wanted to get back to them as soon as he could, but there was something about his new world that intrigued him enough to stay longer. It also didn't help that he found Cara very attractive and thought that he might be falling for her. What he didn't know at the time was that she was also falling for him.

They were inseparable when he had first arrived, but she had been there to take care of him. There were other people around, but they mostly kept to themselves and didn't really seem to want to take the time to get to know him. But Cara was different. She kept a close eye on him the whole time he was recovering, and she stayed with him even when he was finally able to get around by himself.

The day finally came when she told him all about her world and how he happened to get there. She had purposely waited until he felt better and had started recovering his old memories before she added new ones.

Her name was Cara and she was one of the keepers of the lights.

Connor was amazed at her story and who she was. He had always thought there was more to the universe than just there planet. But another level of existence was something he was not expecting to hear from her. Based on his knowledge of the anomalies, they took you to other times but you were still on the same world. Where he was now was not even part of the Earth that he knew. It was an altogether different dimension of time and space. But being a science fiction nerd made this easy for him to understand and accept.

She explained that it was the crossing of two anomalies from two different times that caused an opening into her world and allowed Connor to cross over. It was something that was rare, but he was not the first one to find their way here from his world and it wouldn't be the last time. It was for this very reason that she was one of the keepers of the lights and was entrusted the important duty of guarding a known portal. They knew a lot more about how anomalies worked than Connor or anyone on Earth did, but they had yet to figure out how to stop these rare occurrences from happening.

Connor was fascinated by this whole thing. He thought it was pure luck that he just happened to be in the anomaly at the same time someone else from another time was using one. He really wanted to get back to his friends and his own world, but this was just too much for him and he decided to stay and learn everything that he could.

He was unsure of how much time he had really spent here and Cara was not much help except to say that time flowed differently here than in his world. But he knew one thing for sure; he had been here long enough to have made a personal connection with her. He loved her and he knew she loved him back. He also felt connected to this world and wanted to stay longer, if not forever, but he knew it was time to go back. He had another life to get back to and he still had feeling for someone else that he sometimes found hard to ignore.

When the day came to send him back, Cara informed him that she would be able to send him back to the exact same day that he would have returned with his friends. She said that she would try to get the time to be almost the same, but couldn't guarantee it like she could the day.

She also reminded him that he would not remember anything once he got back.

He remembered the first time she had told him that and wanted to know how she knew this. She had told him that her people had once sent one of their own people to his world and the consequences were devastating to the person. From that day forward they knew that their kind could never live amongst Connors kind. When Connor asked how he was able to live in her world, she explained that it was different somehow, but she never really dove into much of an explanation.

She had also told him of another incident that had occurred with someone coming from his world. A woman had found herself in their world and while she was here she fell in love with one of their own. A child was the result of their love. They thought she was happy to live here and would want to stay, but instead she insisted on going back to her world. Knowing what affects her world may have on her child, she chose to leave her daughter here with her father.

The whole story fascinated him and he asked to hear about the whole thing.

She said that this little girl, Neleh, was never the same after her mother left. Her father tried to keep her happy, but his time with the girl's mother left him changed, so much so that he decided he could no longer live without her. He chose to leave their world in search of her. He took their daughter with him and they were never seen again.

People were sad to see him leave, but for some reason they never trusted Neleh and were actually happy when she went with him.

Now it was Connor's time to leave and he was starting to have regrets about his decision. He wanted to change his mind, but she told him to go. He had learned enough to find his way back here and could come back when and if he wanted to. She wanted to give him the opportunity to make such a huge decision to stay with her when he was back in his own world.

As he was about to step through the brilliant white light Cara suddenly received some news that changed everything. She had been looking into a few things Connor had told her and the information she was seeking chose this day to make its way to her. As he was stepping through she tried to grab his attention and tell him that he had to find her and stop her.

When he stepped back to his own time, all of this was lost to him. It was only after some time in his own world that bits and pieces came back to him in his dreams, but they were not enough to make any sense. It was her kiss that brought everything back to him. And now he was once again with her. He didn't know how long he had been watching her, but when the food was set in front of him he asked her about her warning before he left.

"So Cara, I have to ask you; what were you trying to tell me right before I left this world to go back to my own?"

Cara stopped what she was doing and took the seat next to him. "I was never sure if you heard me or not. Do you remember when you were telling me about some of the people from your world, well I decided to check something out and right before you left me I got the news that I was looking for. But I always felt I was too late and you didn't hear me. Plus, I thought if you did hear me you would forget about it as soon as you got back home".

"So what did you find out?"

"Well I thought that the woman Helen you told me about sounded familiar so I checked on a few things and found out that the woman who had been here and had a child was named Helen. The description of her was eerily similar to the Helen we had here. I think she was the same person and that she who had come here before and now her own child is now out there somewhere".

"But you asked me to stop her. I told you that we had stopped her, which is how I ended up here to begin with".

"It wasn't her that I asked you to stop, it was her daughter. The day the little girl left, my people feared what might happen if she were ever to return. The little girl was smart, she was practically a genius, but there was also something not right about her. She made threats to our people, who she blamed for her mother's departure. I never knew her or her mother or father, but I found someone who did and they were the ones who wanted me to ask you to find her and stop her from ever returning here".

"Sorry Cara, I didn't remember anything when I got back, but you did come to me in my dreams. You were trying to tell me something, but I never could figure it out".

"That's ok Connor, I'm sure she is not a threat to anyone here. But your return has really sparked a lot of talk amongst my people. They were very shocked that you were able to find your way back here. I know we showed you some of the devices we made to open an anomaly, but they never thought you would be able to build one from your memory, especially one so sophisticated. The one you brought back with you is unlike any that we have. How were you able to make one of these anyway?"

Connor thought about it and finally remembered it was a diagram of Trina's that he had been working on when he started altering it. "I'm not really sure how I made what I did, but I do know that the main idea came from a diagram drawn from the woman we brought back from my future. I didn't know what it was, but parts of the design just seemed to come to me and it was as if I knew there were flaws in it. I'm not really sure how I knew to make the changes I did, but what matters is that it worked". He leaned in for a kiss, but was surprised when she pulled away from him.

Cara wasn't sure if she was just putting way too much thought in what Connor said, but there was something that was bothering her about this diagram he used. "How would she know how to draw something that would inspire you to make a device that would ultimately bring you here?" She stopped to think about what to say next. "What was her name again?"

"Trina".

She didn't say anything more to him about this. She was always one to be easily paranoid and this was probably no different. But it was still something to consider. It had to be too much of a coincidence that the father of the little girl that was born here had been called Trian. There couldn't be any connection to this Trina who just happened to come back with Connor to his own time and to the little girl who was born here. So what if she had drawn something that would enable Connor to build a device capable of traveling back here. It couldn't be this easy that Connor just happened to find the little girl her world feared and bring her back to his own time. What were the chances of something like that happening? She decided to put the idea out of her mind for now. She wanted to enjoy her time with Connor. She had missed him so much after he left and had waited this whole time for his return.

Authors Note: Well I hope this clears up some of the mystery of what happened to Connor. You may still be confused, but that's only because I'm not done with the story yet. Reviews would be nice to let me know what you think.