A/N: I tried uploading this earlier from my smartphone, but couldn't. Oh well, here it is. For those curious, Becker and Jess are NOT together. They're in the same place they were for series 4&5 - obviously crazy about each other, but not brave enough to do anything about it... ;)

********** Something Bad **********

"So despite it not being your idea, are you planning on helping Emily with this crazy plan?"

Jess looked over from her screen to see Becker leaning against the desk of the ADD. His expression was considerably more relaxed than earlier, and a soft smile played on his lips as he awaited her answer. She smiled brilliantly at him. "Of course. Would you expect anything else?"

He chuckled and shook his head. "Not at all."

"Are you?"

"Well since I'm definitely more of a behind-the-scenes guy, I figured I could offer to help with the prep work. That stage isn't going to build itself, and I wouldn't trust Connor with a hammer."

Jess giggled at the visual. "You mean, Mr. Take-Charge is actually going to let someone else drive for a change?"

"Oh come on, I'm not that bad." Jess fixed him with her patented look, and he crumbled. "Ok, maybe I am."

She grinned, knowing that she'd won. "Relax. You always have good intentions."

He smirked at her, and she felt her insides melt a bit. She both hated and loved that he had that effect on her. "So what are you going to help with?" he asked.

"Whatever Emily needs," she answered easily. "I'd like to help with the music, if I can."

"How?"

"Well I do have a bit of a musical background, after all."

"You do?"

She winked at him. "I am a woman of MANY talents, Captain Becker, a good number of which you don't even know about." She suddenly realized the double meaning to her statement, and her face started to burn. Turning away so he couldn't see her embarrassment, she happened to miss the light flush that stained his own cheeks at the images that went rocketing through his head at her words.

Luckily they were both saved by the anomaly warning bell. Springing into action, Becker grabbed for the black boxes while Jess' fingers started flying across the keyboard of the ADD.

"What have we got Jess?" Matt demanded as he strode in, Connor and Abby at his heels.

"Anomaly down by the bridge," she answered quickly. "Patching into CCTV now for a visual," she continued as they all sprinted from the Ops room, passing a black box and comm link to Emily as she joined them.

"No sign of a creature incursion yet, but I'll keep you posted." Jess' voice was calm in their ears as they climbed into the cars and drove off, but both Abby and Becker detected a slight shake due to her earlier embarrassment. "I'm detouring traffic as best I can, and have put out word to evacuate the area due to a possible sewer problem. There's also a back-up team being deployed for you as we speak"

"So what sort of things will we have to do for your auditions, Emily?" Connor inquired.

"Not exactly the best time or place, luv," Abby hissed, catching the angry glare that Matt was now giving Connor for bringing this up again.

"Why do you have such a problem with this, Matt?" Emily asked innocently over the comms from Becker's car. "I know that you didn't have a lot of happiness in your time, but maybe it's time to change all of that."

"Can we please focus on the task at hand?" Matt countered, keeping his voice as calm as he could.

"Jeez, usually it's Action Man who's got the stick up his – "

"What was that, Temple?"

Connor froze like a deer in the headlights, causing everyone, including Jess, to chuckle a bit. "Nothing, Captain," he answered, a definite tremor in his voice.

"Good lad," Becker finished, looking at the mess of traffic in front of them. "Jess, we've got a jam here. Any chance of getting us around it?"

"Take a right."

"When?"

"Now!" Everyone braced themselves as Becker and Matt swung the cars hard to the right and into an underground parking garage. "This will take you out the other side where you can pick up the side roads to the bridge."

"Thanks Jess."

"No prob – " Everyone grew a bit concerned when she was cut off with what sounded like a soft thud.

"Jess?" Emily asked. She was met with silence. "Jess, are you there?" Still nothing.

"Jess," Becker said into the comm, sounding much more calm than actually felt. "What's going on?"

"Guys, something's wrong. She always answers," Abby whispered, concern starting to leak into her voice.

"Try Lester's number," Matt offered. "It may just be a technical glitch with the ADD." No one wanted to speak to the fact that under Jess' command, the ADD never experienced glitches.

"Lester's not picking up," Connor confirmed less than a minute later, lowering his cell phone. "Which either means that he's in a meeting and can't, or – "

"Or something is very wrong back at the ARC," Becker finished, his knuckles whitening as he clenched his steering wheel.

"Becker, you and Emily go back and see what's going on. We'll stay on comm's and head for the anomaly. The back-up teams should be en route if not there already." Matt knew that Becker was already calculating the angle for his U-turn before he even spoke, but at least this way it would go into the records as an order and wouldn't get anyone into trouble.

"Let us know if you need us at the anomaly," Emily said as she clung to the door handle as Becker whipped the car around and headed back in the direction they'd come from.

It felt like an hour had passed by the time they roared back into the ARC carpark. Becker had barely thrown the car into park and turned it off when he and Emily sprinted from the vehicle towards the building. They practically jumped down the many flights of stairs to get to the Ops room, both silently agreeing that the lift would take too long. Just as they were coming down the last flight of stairs, they heard three horrific sounds.

The wail of one of their creatures, a terrified scream that Becker recognized instantly as Jess', and then sound of several EMD blasts.

Emily and Becker didn't slow as they pulled their own EMD's out of their holsters and bolted into the main room. They didn't even think about following protocol as they surveyed the sight before them.

All they could see was the back of a raptor, squealing towards the ADD. They could see EMD light blasts coming from around the front of it, but couldn't yet see the source. Nevertheless, they reared back and opened fire on the beast. It had obviously taken a good number of EMD hits before they'd arrived, because it only took a few from each of them to bring it down. It fell to the side of the room, landing hard close to the wall, and stirring up a bit of dust. It was only once they were sure it was down that Becker and Emily, breathing hard from exertion, looked over towards the ADD and the source of the other EMD blasts.

Jess stood in a fighting stance, with blazing eyes and wild hair that had fallen out of its ponytail, armed with a large EMD clenched tightly in her hands. She too was breathing heavily, and the fire in her eyes vanished when she looked up and saw her friends standing there.

Emily kept her gun trained on the raptor as Becker crossed the room so fast she barely saw him. He said nothing as he hauled Jess into his arms and held her so tightly to him that he lifted her a few inches off the floor. She let her EMD slip from her fingers as she brought her arms up to clasp behind his neck and tried hard not to shake when the fear of what just happened started to set in.

Becker could hear Emily speaking to Matt and the others over the comm's, but all he could think about was the tiny girl with her arms around him. They'd had far too many close calls with her safety in the last little while. First there was the episode with the beetles where she'd nearly died from anaphylaxis, then there was the future predators in the ARC incident, and now this. Becker wanted answers for why the raptor was where it was, and was ready to offer up some severe pain to whomever was responsible. But right now, all that mattered was that Jess was safe.

"I thought…I mean…I didn't…" Jess tried to say something coherent, but it just wasn't happening for her at that moment. Becker lowered her so that she was on her own two feet (still nestled in the safety of his arms, of course), and gently brushed some of her loose hair out of her face as he looked at her.

"Shh, it's ok," he said as her bright blue eyes finally focused on him. "You're ok." It was more of a reassuring statement for himself, but calming her down would help him relax a bit as well. He cupped her cheek and took deep breaths to slow his own heart rate, and she mimicked his actions, her hands now coming to rest on his chest. They stared into each other's eyes for a while, shutting out the rest of the world as they each tried to find comfort in the fact that they were unharmed. Eventually he leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead before gathering her in her arms once more. Becker felt her let out a sigh of relief, and finally felt that she would be alright to speak again. "What happened, Jess?

Not moving from his embrace, she started to explain. "I don't even know where it came from. I was giving you guys the alternate directions when I looked up and saw it over the ADD. I was so shocked to see it that I must have disconnected our comm's without knowing it. It was looking right at me…"

"Thank goodness you're alright," Emily said, reaching a hand out to touch Jess' shoulder. Becker looked over to see that some of his men were loading the raptor onto a trolley, to transport it to the menagerie. He felt Jess smile softly into his chest in response to Emily's words, and waited for her to continue.

"It just kept looking at me, as if it was waiting for me to run. I know that its vision isn't based on movement, but I just couldn't move. When the internal alarm sounded, it was distracted enough for me to be able to dive under the desk for the EMD you put there after the future predators fiasco," she said, nudging Becker with her shoulder. "It jumped over the ADD, and I just started firing at it. I pushed it back far enough to get out from under the desk, and had gotten off a couple more shots before you guys got here." At this point she pulled back a bit from Becker's embrace, but still let him hold her close. Looking at him first and then at Emily, she went on. "I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't gotten here when you did," she said as she settled her cheek back over his steady heartbeat.

"I just have one question," Emily stated, causing both of her companions to look up at her. "Where the devil is Lester in all this?"

Jess chuckled. "Don't you remember? He has a family function this weekend so he left work fairly soon after your musical announcement."

Becker laughed with her. "I think he'd rather be taking on the raptor with Jess than where he is right now."

Emily grinned, then put her hand to the comm in her ear. "Copy that, Matt. We're all fine here." After a brief pause, she looked back at the couple standing in front of her. "They've closed up the anomaly. No sign of any creatures, but we're leaving some soldiers to patrol the area for a while to be sure."

Wondering why he hadn't heard this, Becker pulled one of his arms from Jess and put it to his ear to find his comm was missing. He looked back at Emily, who held it out to him. "You were a bit distracted and in a hurry." He threw her a smile as he felt Jess shake a bit with a giggle. "I'm going to go and see if I can find out why in the world a raptor was roaming around in the Ops room," she stated with a tinge of anger in her voice as she walked away.

"Come on, Warrior Woman," Becker said, teasingly. "Let's get you down to medical to get looked at."

"Why?" Jess inquired. He lowered his gaze and stared pointedly at her shoulder and arm. She glanced down and saw that the sleeve was torn and bloody. "Damn, it did get me," she whispered, and he felt his heart clench at the thought of her being slashed by the raptor. "It doesn't even hurt."

"That would be the adrenaline," he informed her as he guided her away from the ADD, still keeping an arm around her waist.

"Now, about those talents you mentioned earlier…" he trailed off, smiling at the sudden blush that rose to her face.