He said nothing but did look into the mirror to see what the girl was doing.

She just sat there staring intently at her lap as though thinking intensely; he almost had to roll his eyes, because that was exactly what the ARC needed; another genius who was convinced that his fears for their safety were completely unwarranted.

He narrowed his eyes slightly and continued the rest of the journey in silence.

For Jess, the rest of car journey flew past as her mind flitted from one possible course of action to another. Her main focus was whether she should tell them (she was still unsure of who they were; she thought that asking Becker questions about his colleagues would raise too much suspicion for this early on) that she was from the future or just pretend to be completely clueless.

Given that she had walked through an anomaly and had been quickly followed by advanced weaponry, it seemed like a pretty safe guess that the people at the ARC would put two and two together and work out she was from the future. Jess sighed; it looked like she was in for an awkward conversation concerning her origins.

When they arrived at the ARC a soldier held open the door for her to exit the car and Jess was a little touched by the gesture. That was until he motioned as if to take the EMD away from her that she was still clutching onto as though it were a lifeline. With a swiftness that caught the soldier of balance, Jess side stepped and pushed past him pausing only to send him a scathing look. In hindsight she realised that she should have been looking forward as she walked as she had taken no more than two steps before she walked straight into Becker.

"You can't take that inside the building," he said nodding towards the gun, "give it to me and I'll make sure that it gets put in the armoury."

Jess squared her shoulders and straightened her back; glad of the few extra inches of height her shoes lent to her, "Either this comes with me or I don't answer any questions." Seeing Becker's face she hastened to add on to the end of her sentence, "It's not like I'm going to use it, I promise! Its just that I need to have it … you'll see why later I suppose…" in truth Jess didn't think that her life was in danger at all, in fact for the time being she would probably be the safest person in the ARC seeing as she knew that she would be pumped for information.

No, Jess's real concern lay in the fact that in even her time the EMD's were cutting edge technology and she didn't want them getting dissected on some technician's lab table before they were meant to be; after seeing all of Matt's effort and sacrifice to save the timelines she really didn't want to be the one to undo all of his work and screw them up.

"Fine." Said Becker shortly and effectively cutting across her musings, "But you'll have an armed guard with you at all times, and at the first whisper of trouble that peashooter is confiscated."

Jess had to try and restrain a smile as Becker finally caught onto the fact that what she was holding was not a real gun though it was as, if not more so, lethal. Jess decided not to set him right about this though, as she had a feeling that she was only being allowed to keep a hold of it due to the fact that it was supposedly safe from causing too much harm.

Having finished their discussion Becker summoned another guard and together they walked Jess into the ARC.

Jess, for one, was astounded at the difference that existed within the old ARC. Whereas her work station in her time had been in a slightly dim windowless room with only the low overhead lights and glowing monitor screens to offer any light, here the ARC was open, airy and filled with light. Work stations were dotted around the room and Jess caught a glimpse of what was easily recognisable as the first model of the ADD.

However, before she was able to get a proper look the soldier and Becker had veered to the left and were walking up a ramp to a clear glass office, leaving Jess no option but to follow behind them.

When they reached the office Becker let them in saying that someone would be in soon to decide what to do with her, before sitting in the corner impassively.

For a moment after she had been led into the office Jess had been at a loss about who they were here to see, but then common sense kicked in. Obviously it would be Lester seeing as even in this time he was head of the organisation and as Jess cast her eyes across the only desk in the room she saw a familiar looking decanter of whiskey sitting half hidden under stacks of paper work.

Jess nearly jumped at the sound of the door closing behind her. Her head whipped around to see the familiar figure of James Lester standing in his office looking slightly confused but for the most part bored. Some things never change, she thought.

He looked much the same as he did in her time, same sort of suit, same expression; in fact the only change was his hair seemed slightly longer and his face freer of stress lines.

"No."

Jess turned slightly in her seat to see if Becker had made any more sense of Lester's speech than he had. Apparently not as he started to speak,

"Excuse me, sir?-"

"You cannot have any more people joining your little team of renegades, I get quite enough complaints and paperwork from you already and I don't need more, thank you very much."

Jess cracked a smile at this though it was quickly changed into a face of indifference at Becker's questioning look.

"This is Emily Merchant. My team and I caught her as she walked through an anomaly earlier today."

Becker's words had an immediate effect on Lester who immediately ran a sharp eye over Jess.

"Walked through an anomaly, you say? Right, you there," said Lester this time directing his words at the soldier of whose name Jess had yet to learn, "fetch Cutter."

….

A/N- Bit of a necessary evil this chapter, I'm afraid. Not much happening but the next chapter should be fast and much more interesting, so fingers crossed! A massive thank you goes out to all those who have responded to this story, I really wasn't expecting it but as ever more reviews are always welcome, all the best- VE