When Connor wandered away again to resume working on the locking device Jess looked down at the machine in front of her in despair. There was no way it would be ready before Cutter's untimely demise and she couldn't be here for that. Nor could she leave and leave her project here as soon Helen would turn the building she was standing in to ash and shattered glass. As far as Jess could see there was only one solution. And she utterly despised it.
Jess turned in early that night, so early that some of the team were still working by the time she yawned and said she was going to bed. Everyone said good night without paying attention and went back to what they were doing. No one was suspicious. In a way Jess wished they were more sceptical of her; she wanted to be stopped.
She walked to her bedroom but instead of getting ready for bed she got to work. She had managed to snag a large bag from one of the lab assistants earlier and it was with this bag that she packed all of her clothes she had been given and any other possessions she would need. By the end of her packing her room looked as barren as when she had first been given it.
Her next stop was to the canteen. She crept through the hallways and thankfully met no one on her way there. When she reached her destination, once again she went about packing things she would need. There would be no food where she as going and she had no money in this time to get any, so anything she wanted would need to be taken with her. She only took what she would need for a week and made sure that they would last. She felt guilty about taking what wasn't hers but she couldn't change events or let Helen Cutter know that she was from the future.
She paused for a second as she remembered the EMD that no doubt sat in the armoury by now, she almost went down to get it before she reasoned that the ARC would be obliterated soon; there was no point in retrieving it now.
Her last stop was to the main working space that she had moved her work to. By this time the lights had dimmed and Jess was almost certain that no one remained at the ARC.
She had been assigned a lab but she preferred to work in the open where she could see everyone and work with Connor if she wanted to. She set her bag of provisions down on the floor and went about her more delicate packing.
She had to take the recreation of Connor's prototype with her if she even wanted to attempt to get back home and it would need to be transported carefully. As soon as she had it in a metal briefcase much like the one Connor and Becker had used in the future to transport the small anomaly, she set about gathering the tools she would need to create the machine to get her home.
She had just finished gathering the last of what she would need when a voice spoke behind her. The very last voice that she wanted to her.
"I thought this would happen eventually." Jess closed her eyes before turning around. Cutter was leaning against one of the work benches as he looked at her and he slowly walked towards her. "So I'm guessing that this," he indicated the bag full of tools and machinery and the bag on the floor full of her clothes and food, "means your leaving."
Jess looked up at him with a lump in her throat, "I'm sorry-"
"Don't be." He said firmly, "I'm right in thinking that you have to leave?" He looked at questioningly and she nodded miserably. "Now I just want to know one thing. Why are you leaving now? Why not earlier?"
Jess looked at him and for the first time it really hit her that this man would be dead within the week. She liked Cutter and it hurt to think that this was the last time she would ever talk to him. "Because I like it here." She said in a small voice, "And I thought I might be able to get home before…"
"Before what?" Asked Cutter gently, being careful to keep his voice even. He thought he knew what her answer would be but he didn't want to assume.
"Something's going to happen." Said Jess trying to keep her voice strong, "Something big. And I can't be here for it."
"I see." Said Cutter. Once again he felt the wry half smile work its way on to his face; gallows humour he supposed. He could work it out, he knew he died between this time and Jess's and if her behaviour was anything to go by he was willing to bet it was going to be soon, "Have you got anywhere to go?" He asked.
Jess looked up in surprise at his question but he just looked at her expectantly until she answered, "Yes," she said quietly and truthfully, "I know where I'm going." It wasn't the perfect place to lay low but it was the best she could think of.
"Is it far?" Asked Cutter once again taking Jess by surprise with his line of questioning.
"I should be able to walk there in an hour or two." She said cautiously. In truth, the destination she had in mind was closer to the site of the future ARC than this one. It would certainly be quite the walk but she was confident that she could make it in a few hours, that was if she didn't get lost.
To her confusion Cutter pulled out his wallet, "Here." He said pressing the money into her hand, while waving down her protests, "Get yourself a cab, you shouldn't be walking the streets this time of night."
Jess stared at him as she felt her eyes fill up with tears, there was something about his last sentence that made her want to curl up on the floor and never get up. The man in front of her was making sure that she would be safe while she fled to save herself from his death. Jess was pretty sure this was the lowest she had ever felt in her entire life.
"Take it." Said Cutter misinterpreting her silence as unwillingness to take the money, "If I'm right," he carried on now looking at her with calculative eyes, " I won't be needing it for much longer will I?"
Jess's eyes widened when she heard and she quickly looked down. It unnerved her slightly to hear someone take the news of their death so calmly and she wished beyond anything that he hadn't worked it out.
"I didn't think so." Cutter said quietly. Then before Jess could react he took her hand and shook it, "Well, Miss Parker, it's been a pleasure meeting you. Have a nice life." With that he walked away into the shadows of the ARC corridors without so much as a backward glance.
Jess stood by herself feeling entirely alone as her eyes silently overflowed. She allowed herself a minute of self pity before she visibly pulled herself together and steeled herself for the outside world. It was time for her to leave.
~o~o~o~
The destination she gave the cab driver made him turn back and give a questioning look but when she thrust half of the money into his hands he simply shrugged and started driving to the abandoned warehouse the other side of town.
It was the place that Ethan (or she supposed he would be called Patrick, but for some reason he would always be Ethan to her) would use as his base in the future. Jess's wasn't sure what had made her think of it but when she thought out what she would need in a hideout: seclusion, privacy, space to work and a place with no connection to her, the warehouse was the first place that came into her head.
Eventually, the cabbie dropped her off at the derelict building and drove off with a doubtful glance behind him. Jess waited until he had driven out of sight before she started to pick her way though the debris that littered the floor as she made her way up to the main building through the only way she knew how. It gave her the strangest sense of déjà vu to see the car park where she had once sat with Becker on a stake out mission before. The sense of wrongness only increased as she walked up the stairs, where every noise she made sounded loud and grating in the oppressive silence, to where she had defused a bomb the last time she had been there. Where the bomb would sit was only a mess of broken furniture for now, but Jess made sure to stay away from it anyway. She wandered over to a window when she was hit with the most acute sense of homesickness she had ever felt.
Out of the window she could see Matt's future apartment. She knew she shouldn't be surprised as the only reason Ethan had chosen this abandoned building was that he could keep an eye on Emily while she stayed with Matt but even so she felt the longing to go over there. She had only been into Matt's flat twice and both times because they lived close and he had needed a lift into work but the longing to be someplace familiar was overwhelming.
Now that she thought about it she realised how much she missed Matt and Emily. She had always liked and respected Matt but somewhere over the course of working with him he had become more than a boss, he had become a friend. As for Emily; Jess found it hard to believe that she had ever lived in the Victorian era at all. For all she pretended to be prim and proper the woman had a wicked sense of humour and had taken to the twenty first century like a duck to water. Needless to say she and Jess got on like a house on fire.
Of course she missed her life and friends back home but in a way she still had them. The people she worked with in this time weren't quite the ones she worked with before, they were different in so many ways, but equally they were the same. She had no time to miss Connor or Abby or Becker or Lester because they were already there, in a way it was like she couldn't miss them because she was too busy talking to them even though she knew that they weren't really her friends. At least, not yet.
It was the people like Matt and Emily that she could miss completely and she found herself wishing to be with.
Jess tore her gaze from the window and forced her memories to the back of her mind as she looked around her temporary residence. She had work to do.
~o~o~o~
The days passed slowly for Jess as she lived in an abandoned warehouse and tried to fix technology that she didn't completely understand. She had an uneasy routine that consisted mainly of working on the prototype but even that couldn't distract her from her thoughts. She was almost unbearably lonely. She hadn't been able to risk going out hardly at all and she had no reason to so she had spoken to no one since Cutter had left her to leave. Her only consolation were her memories. She kept replaying them through her head to remind herself of why she wanted to get back.
She remembered Emily's face when they first introduced her to fizzy drinks.
She almost smiled when she remembered Connor telling her about him and Abby being engaged.
The memory of Lester telling off the medical staff as he was wheeled back into the hub after the future predator attack almost made her giggle.
The smirk on Matt's face as he shot Becker halfway across the room.
Becker. She remembered Becker. All the awkward smiles and fleeting hugs. It was hard to believe what Abby said that he really hadn't noticed her over the top flirting but she had thought just for a moment that he might like her too. It was just after she had woken up from the beetle incident and his face was the first thing she saw and she could have sworn that something more than friendship glinted in his eyes. But no. Nothing. Nada.
Jess closed her eyes and let the memories of the future ARC wash over her but frowned almost instantly. Her memories were becoming entangled with the team at the old ARC. Where she remembered Connor from her time she could see the Connor from this as well. If she tried to remember a joke that Abby had told her it took a second to work out when she had been told.
Over the time she had come here they had accepted her, a little begrudgingly on some parts, but accepted her nonetheless. All the people she had never gotten to know in her time and he was her opportunity.
She could see Sarah Page laughing as she talked to Abby. Her face was beautiful and whole, not like the pictures on the report of her death.
She remembered Jenny, the woman still didn't trust her but even from a distance Jess could see the half glances and smiles she gave Cutter.
Cutter. She recalled seeing Cutter talking to Connor, exasperation showing on his face but the humour in his eyes betraying his mood. Seeing him working on his model of the anomalies with a concentration that she had yet to see on any one else. Trying to hold back a laugh along with the others as Cutter got more and more frustrated with Lester's pencil pusher attitude and sarcasm.
She remembered in her time Connor and Abby always grew quiet and solemn at the day that marked his death. She hadn't understood at first but a quick look in the files had told her all she needed to know. At the time she had felt sorry for both of them but now she only felt worse having seen first hand how close they were.
It was clear to see that Connor looked up to him. In the future he talked about carrying on Cutter's work but in the time Jess was in now he seemed content to just seek the approval of the older man with his inventions and ideas and the praise was freely given.
It was harder to see with Abby but Jess knew that she loved Cutter too. The Abby in her time was had not changed in the way she found it hard to trust people but what was clear was that she trusted Cutter to within an inch of her life. The idea that soon the man would be just another name on a gravestone made Jess feel cold and guilty at the same time. It felt wrong to know which turn the events would take and do nothing to help anyone.
She bit her lip as she counted the days of her solitude. She already knew the answer but her counting reconfirmed it. It was the morning of April 6th. The day that Cutter was due to be shot.
For a wild second her mind thought on what it could mean to change these events. Cutter need not die, nobody need mourn, she could change history for the better…
She was quickly brought back down to Earth when she remembered the one thing that had been drummed into her at the ARC, Do not change the timelines! She couldn't change the past…could she?
She came to a decision.
She let her eyes close for a moment before she pushed herself to her feet and surveyed what she had achieved with the prototype so far. It was much closer to working, she could tell that much. Her constant attention and time had brought it closer to being able to bring her home but still, it refused to yield just yet.
She spared it one last glance as she swept out of the dirty room as she hoped that she would still be alive to come back to it by the end of the day.
….
A/N- Once again I hope you enjoyed it, if so (or if not) please review and keep reading…