Chapter 16

Cutter looked up from the Locking Mechanism as Conner made the final adjustments to the wires. But Jenny was nowhere to be seen. Puzzled, he got to his feet and looked around properly . . . where was she? He opened his mouth, about to ask Conner if he had seen her walk away, but an earsplitting painful-sounding scream cut into the silence followed by a loud thump. Fear bolted through Cutter as he realised that it was Jenny. Conner leapt to his feet also, but Cutter told him to stay with the Locking Mechanism as he ran off towards the sound. As he went, the ground started to tremble beneath his feet, knocking him off his balance slightly. He sincerely hoped that Conner would be able to closed the anomaly by himself as it they had merely a few seconds before it appeared . . .

He rounded the corner, and was shocked to see Jenny sliding down the wall as though losing consciousness, and Helen standing over her with her gun poised. Without making a noise, Cutter pulled out his gun and aimed it at Helen . . . but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. He just couldn't. Instead . . .

"Helen?" he shouted.

She turned, but before she could strike, Cutter hit her over the head with his gun, knocking her out cold with one blow. Despite knowing he had no choice, he still felt a twang of guilt as he replaced his gun in his belt; he would never usually hurt a woman, even if it was completely justified . . . he just didn't have it in him.

He hurried over to Jenny, who was shaking uncontrollably, and could barely keep her eyes open. He was confused until he spotted a tranquilizer dart on the floor, and realisation washed over him; Helen had drugged her.

"Jenny?" he said clearly, checking her pupils for a reaction, and noticing that she had deep scratches all over her pale skin.

"Cutter . . . go," she said faintly; so faintly that he nearly missed it.

"No, I'm not leaving you like this," he insisted, shaking his head.

"Go and help Conner . . . I'll be fine," she said in a stronger voice that had a trace of bossiness in it. "Now."

Cutter hovered in between standing and sitting, desperately not wanting to abandon her, until he heard Conner calling him.

He had to go.

He quickly pulled his jacket off and made a make-shift pillow on the floor. Gently, he lowered her head onto it as she lost consciousness completely.

"I'll be back in a minute," she said to her, although he doubted she could hear him now.

Before he went, he took the Helen's gun incase she woke up before he got back. Trying not to think about the possibility that Helen might have put a lethal dose in the dart, Cutter hurried back to Conner, feeling disgusted in himself for leaving Jenny. Hopefully, Helen would remain out of the count so that she was in no immediate danger. The earthquake had stopped, and about five feet in front of Conner, the crater with the anomaly in it had formed. To Cutter's recollection, their past selves didn't go outside immediately, so they still had some time.

"What are you waiting for! Lock it!" Cutter yelled as he sprinted over to Conner.

The student pushed the button which caused a visible wave of electricity to project from the device towards the anomaly, sealing it into a tight floating sphere. How they were going to explain this to the public, Cutter had no idea; that was there past selves problem. Right now, they had to get out of the way incase they were seen by . . . well . . . themselves.

"Conner, c'mon lets go!" Cutter shouted.

"But what about the Locking Mechanism?" Conner argued.

"Leave it! There isn't time!" Cutter replied, pulling his arm to encourage him to run. "I'm sure your past self will find it."

They both sprinted back to the other anomaly site. Jenny was still lying slumped against his jacket . . . but Helen was nowhere to be seen.

"What the - ?" Conner began, looking shocked at the site of Jenny unconscious.

"Just help me with her!" Cutter demanded, panicking that they wouldn't make it back through the anomaly in time - there couldn't be two of them all in the same time zone for long . . . he was sure of it.

They hauled her up and into their arms and proceeded through the anomaly.

Then there was nothingness.

"Jenny? JENNY! Can you hear me?"

Someone was shaking her awake roughly. Her senses were returning to her slowly . . . she was on a cold floor . . . there was a hand on her face . . . she opened her eyes with difficulty and saw a woman's face hovering over her, looking concerned. She was very beautiful, with dark brown eyes and long, straight black hair.

"She's coming round," the woman said in a relieved voice, holding out her hand, which Jenny took, and she was hauled to her feet.

"Are you alright?" Lester's voice asked her.

Confused, Jenny looked around in alarm. She was in the ARC . . . in Lester's office to be precise. She looked down at herself and was shocked to see the clothes she was wearing; she had never seen them before . . . a tight pencil skirt with a slit down the back and a ruffled green blouse.

"You just passed out while you were speaking- " the woman was saying from beside her, but Jenny was barely listening; she was to busy scrutinizing her appearance.

She looked down at her arms, and observed that she had none of the scratches or wounds she had picked up since this nightmare had began. In shock, she patted her body all over with her hands; either she had slightly put on weight, or she had never lost it to begin with . . . had it worked? . . . were they back?

"Would you like us to give you some time alone with yourself?" Lester asked sarcastically as he watched her with a raised eyebrow.

The woman next to her smiled at the remark.

"Who are you?" Jenny asked her, finally finding her voice.

The woman exchanged a confused look with Lester, no longer laughing.

"I'm Sarah," she answered slowly, looking bemused.

"Sarah . . . ?" Jenny prompted.

"Sarah Paige," the woman continued, looking a tad offended.

"Have you been on the gin again Jenny?" Lester interjected, observing her with cold confusion. "She was your's and Cutter's hire a month ago . . . don't tell me you've got amnesia or something . . ."

"Sarah . . . right . . . of course," Jenny nodded, although she was a hundred percent sure she'd never seen that woman before in her life.

Glancing through the glass windows and down into the main room, Jenny saw something that stopped her heart, or more precisely, some one.

Abby.

She was walking casually across to the Detector. Jenny let out a excited scream, making Lester and the woman called Sarah jump. But she didn't care, all she cared about was getting to Abby and hugging the life out of her. She ran down the ramp as fast as her heels allowed, and flung herself at the girl without so much as a greeting. Abby looked surprised, but flattered, and patted Jenny on the back slightly.

"I missed you so much," Jenny informed her, pulling away to look at her, tears in her eyes.

"I've only been gone a few minutes," Abby laughed. "What's wrong?"

"She's been acting weird," Sarah said from behind her, having followed Jenny down to the main room.

"ABBY!" Conner's voice traveled over to them from the double doors.

Both Cutter and Conner were standing there in obvious shock, surveying Abby as though they had seen a ghost. Then suddenly, Conner strode over to her and pulled her into a kiss in front of everyone.

"Good God," Lester said, sounding disgusted as he walked down the ramp. "I take my eyes off you lot for one minute and this becomes a sex house."

Cutter walked up to Jenny, beaming. She felt relief flood through her at the sight of him.

"We did it," he breathed, pulling her into a hug. "We fixed it . . ."

"Did what?" Sarah asked, looking frustrated at being out of the loop.

Just then, Abby pulled away from her kiss with Conner and smacked him lightly over the head.

"What are you playing at!" she demanded; although in Jenny's opinion, she didn't look too cross.

"I just can't believe you're here," Conner breathed, looking at her with wide eyes.

"Right that's it!" Lester snapped at them all. "I'm arranging regular mental check ups for you all. I honestly don't know whether to sack you all or cart you off to the funny farm!"

"Will someone PLEASE tell we what is going on!" Sarah demanded, looking at each of them in turn. "What have I missed?"

Cutter looked at Sarah in confusion, but thankfully he had more sense than Jenny had had and didn't ask her who she was; Sarah would probably self-combust if someone asked her that again.

"Sorry, we're all just a bit . . . tired . . ." Jenny finished lamely, looking away so they couldn't tell she was lying.

"Tired? You've all gone completely bonkers!" Sarah pointed out.

It took a hell of a lot of lies and excuses to talk there way out of the tight spot Conner, Cutter and Jenny had gotten themselves into with there shock, relief and confusion at re-entering this world. Eventually, Sarah seemed satisfied at Jenny's excuse that when she fainted in Lester's office, she had banged her head and become confused for a little while.

"So are you still up for tomorrow night then?" Sarah asked her as they walked down the corridor to Jenny's office.

"Tomorrow?" Jenny repeated, again completely perplexed.

"Yeah, you said you needed a night out?" Sarah explained, sounding irritated that she couldn't remember.

"Well if that's what I said, then yes I'm still coming," Jenny replied; it seems that Sarah was not just a colleague, but a friend as well . . . great . . . how on earth was Jenny supposed to get to know her when she had supposedly known her for a month already?

"Right," Sarah said slowly, stopping outside Jenny's office. Her eyes were narrowed suspiciously. "Just . . . get a good night's sleep tonight okay?"

"Okay," Jenny nodded with a smile, before entering her office.

Everything looked the same as she had left it . . . this was so incredibly odd! She surveyed it for a while thinking that she should go and check on her family as soon as she could get away, only turning around when Cutter entered a while later, looking as happy as though it was Christmas day.

"Can you believe we did it?" he exclaimed.

"No, I can't actually," Jenny replied honestly; the happiness she had felt dissipating rapidly. "Why does no one else remember anything?"

"Because it was only me, you and Conner who went through the anomaly to change things."

"Well, why don't we remember anything from the last month here?"

"Because we're in a different evolutionary time line. Time must have caught up with itself and we've missed out on the memories because technically, we weren't here."

"I don't understand," Jenny sighed.

"I don't either to be honest," Cutter admitted. "I think it's just something we've got to accept."

"Where did you wake up?" Jenny asked him.

"With Conner in the gym. I have no idea what we were doing in there; maybe my alternative reality self now enjoys working out?" he joked, obviously trying to make her feel better.

It didn't wok however, and this must have shown on her face as he frowned.

"What's wrong? Aren't you happy?"

"I'm thrilled we fixed everything and got Abby back," she sighed. "But I've got a new colleague and she's apparently now one of my friends - "

"Are you talking about Sarah? Because she seems nice."

"Yeah, she does seem nice. But the problem is I don't know her, and that I'm never going to get to know her because I can't ask her questions about herself or anything incase I've already asked them. She already thinks I'm mad now."

"Well apparently I've started a research project with Sarah into mythical beasts that I have no memory of, and so will now have to probe the poor girl for information on a subject that I'm meant to be in charge of!"

Jenny gave him a sympathetic smile, and sighed. This was going to be hard. Then a sudden thought struck her.

"Becker - " she began, but Cutter interrupted her.

"Safe," he said. "I've just seen him. It looks like he doesn't remember anything about the other time line either."

Jenny nodded, relieved.

"Is this was what it was like when you came back from the anomaly before?" Jenny asked, talking about the anomaly that had apparently turned Claudia Brown into herself.

Cutter obviously knew what she was referring to.

"In a way," he began, looking down at the floor. "But imagine you coming back and finding that I have a different name, that I'm engaged to another woman, and have no memory of you. That was what it was like for me with you."

Jenny looked up at him, and for the first time, she actually believed him; she knew now how possible it was.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"For what?"

"For not knowing you at first . . . for being with Mark . . . for everything," she finished.

"I wasn't your fault, it was mine. I changed something . . . I could have erased your life completely - "

"But you didn't," she soothed, putting her forehead on his chest and allowing him to pull her into a hug.

They held each other for a long time, only breaking apart when there was a knock at the door. Conner poked his head in.

"Sorry to interrupt," he said quickly, looking rather embarrassed. "But could I have a quick word, Jenny?"

"I'm must go and see if I can get Sarah to explain to me how I came up with the idea of mythological beasts mapping out anomalies throughout time without her getting me sectioned," Cutter said, excusing himself, giving Jenny's arm a slight squeeze before he left.

"What's the problem Conner?" Jenny asked kindly, perching on the edge of her desk.

"I just wanted to apologize," he began, looking rather sheepish.

"For what?"

"For the way I treated you after what happened to Abby," he explained, looking rather upset. "I was so horrible to you, and you didn't deserve it - "

Jenny shook her head, forcing him into silence.

"It was my fault. If I wouldn't have asked her to go with me, she would have never got shot."

"But that doesn't make it your fault; it was Helen's," Conner interrupted. "I just wanted to make sure that you weren't cross with me."

"Of course I'm not," Jenny replied truthfully. "We all said and did things . . . well lets just put it all behind us okay?"

He nodded enthusiastically.

"Because . . . well, I just wanted you to know that I think the world of you," he continued, blushing slightly.

"Well the feeling is entirely mutual," Jenny smiled.

Conner smiled and blushed heavier, before turning to leave.

"And Conner?" Jenny stopped him.

"Hmm?" he asked, turning back round.

"If you don't tell Abby how you feel about her soon, I will," she joked.

"I think she'd be flattered," Conner smirked. "But I really don't think you're her type to be honest."

Jenny chuckled to herself as he left with a smile.

The next chapter is the last I'm afraid :( as always, let me know what you think!