A/N: Thanks again to those of you who reviewed. I love to hear your thoughts on and reactions to the story as it progresses, so please do tell me. Cookies to Kate, Pandora and Smallfri for reviewing chapter 14.

Chapter 15

"Captain!"

Becker turned at the sound of one of him soldiers calling him. He saw the reason for the call immediately: the anomaly was pulsing, getting ready to close. He held a hand up to the man who had called.

"It's all right, Jenkins," he said. "We're staying on this side."

The soldier nodded and relaxed, motioning to the others with him to step back and let the anomaly close. The other five soldiers did as they were told, falling into murmuring conversation as they waited for their next order.

Becker nodded to himself. His team were sensible and adaptable. They were coming to terms with their situation far more readily than he had expected or hoped. He turned back to the knight and checked the man's pulse again. Still weak, but there. He glanced up at Kate, still propping up the knight on one side. Her eyes flicked up and met his for a second, then flicked away again.

Suddenly a screech ripped through the air. Becker spun round and stood up in one fluid motion. His eyes focussed on the anomaly just in time to see a muddy brown and green tail disappear through. He glanced over to his men. Four, no five. One was on the ground unconscious. One missing. Who? Jenkins. He raced over to his team, reaching them just as the anomaly snapped shut.

"What just happened?" Becker demanded.

"Creature, sir," one of the men replied. Barclay, his name was, Becker recalled. "Came at us from the woods, sir. Heading straight for the anomaly. Faulkner and Jenkins got in the way. It knocked Faulkner out, picked Jenkins up and threw him through the anomaly. Disappeared through right after him."

"It must have sensed the anomaly was closing," Becker muttered. "What kind of creature was it? Did you get a good look?"

"Looked like a t-rex, sir, but smaller," Barclay replied. "About the size of our van."

"A young therapod," Elizabeth's voice cut in behind Becker. "Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus, something like that. They would be right for that time period."

"Carnivores?" Becker asked, looking round to the older woman.

"Of course," she replied.

"Right," said Becker, turning back to his remaining men. "Barclay, make a note in our log book. Movement through anomaly to medieval era, date still unconfirmed. Disappearance and assumed death of Sergeant Jenkins. Injury of Lance Corporal Faulkner. Aggressor juvenile therapod dating from Kimmeridgian stage of Jurassic era. Suspected Allosaurus, Ceratosaurus or similar. Other possible casualties, one man in full Knights Templar armour, unconscious and treated for head injury. Once you've done that, go and stand guard over the others. Jones, Simpson, get some poles from this wood and make me two stretchers: one for Faulkner and one for our friend over there. Tremayne, go with them and keep and eye out for any other creatures. Anything that looks dangerous and in the wrong time, shoot to kill."

Becker ran a hand through his usually unruffled hair and turned back to the civilian section of his group.

"Ms. Docherty, I need you to take over from Kate. Keep the knight upright and keep John with you," he said, walking past Elizabeth as he spoke and stopping in front of Kate, his pistol already in his hand. "Kate, I know you don't like using them, but you're the only other person here with firearm training. I need you to take this gun and stand guard for me. Barclay will help you. He'll be finished with the log book in a minute, then he'll join you. One of you look one way one the other, make sure the whole area around you is covered, okay?"

"Where are you going?" Kate asked, standing up as Elizabeth took her place by the knight's side.

"Somebody needs to go with Tremayne and the others," he replied, pressing the gun into her hand. "Don't worry, I'll be fine. Just keep an eye on everything here for me. You won't be moving around but you've got a wider area to watch because we can't move Faulkner until we know his neck isn't damaged."

Kate nodded dumbly and took the gun she was being given.

"Good girl, I'll be back soon," Becker pressed a kiss onto Kate's forehead and ran off after Jones, Simpson and Tremayne.

XXXX

She was leaning over to whisper in his ear now. He could remember her words clearly, asking where they were. He watched himself turn to her and whisper back an answer, so quietly that there was no way he could hear himself at this distance, but the words were so etched in his memory that his brain filled in the blanks.

"Somewhere in the Triassic, definitely, unless that nothosaurus has managed to find its way through two anomalies. If it's the Triassic, then we're probably on Pangaea, it was all one continent then, and you are now looking out at the Panthalassic ocean: the largest ocean ever."

He watched her turn and look out at the ocean. Blonde hair almost glowing in the sun as she turned. He could save her right now. He could get up out of this hollow, walk over there and steal her away with him, or tell her not to go through that anomaly, or tell her not to stay with Cutter and Lester in London, to go with him to Darwin House when he left. He could take his past self aside and explain to him all the things he wished he'd said and done before they'd separated. Tell himself the mistakes not to make.

Before he had even raised himself a centimetre out of the hollow, Helen had pulled him back down again.

"Don't be a fool," she hissed. "Do you have any idea of the damage you could do?"

"I could save Abby's life right here, right now!" Connor hissed back, anger and desperation showing through.

"You would create a paradox. One that you can't trick your way out of. You save Abby now and you have no need to build the technology that brought us here to save her in the first place. The result of that would not only kill both of you, but also your entire team, not to mention wipe out our last chance of saving humanity from the plague that brought us here."

Connor buried his head in his hands. Helen Cutter might be many things, but she wasn't stupid. Changing history was unpredictable at the best of times but the consequences of changing this part of history right now would be dire. He looked up, aware that all he could do now was watch as his life replayed itself before his eyes.

They were over on the rock pile now, looking down at the nothosaurus beach, the creatures there already made jumpy by his and Helen's appearance earlier, they were now sliding off into the water. Soon the beach was empty and Connor watched himself and Abby leave the rocks and head over to the military detail assigned to them. That was the conversation about poetry, he thought as he watched he past self throw his hands up as Abby danced away from him to join the soldiers.

He watched as she reached the top of the bank. If she looked the wrong way now she would see him and Helen. Seeing him on his own might be enough to confuse her, but seeing him with the woman they had always considered their nemesis would surely be an even greater shock. She didn't look their way though, instead keeping her eyes fixed on his past self climbing up the bank to join her. Connor smiled at the memory of what came next, watching Abby wrap her arms around his neck and kiss him.

"What was that for?"

She had laughed at the look of confusion on his face then. It did look quite comical, he decided, watching himself from the safe distance of the hollow.

"I just had a thought," she had said. "You do realise that this is the earliest time period we've been in?"

"Other than our own time, and the future one, it's the only one we've been in," he had replied.

"But still, there are no other humans here, are there?"

"Well, there's the soldiers..."

"Yes, Conn, there's the soldiers, that's hardly what I meant!"

"Well, what did you mean then?"

"When I kissed you a moment ago, do you know what that was?"

Unable to think of a sensible reply, he had pulled a face.

"It was the first kiss in the whole of history," she had grinned, giggling.

"Oh! I see. I..."

He was cut off as she kissed him again, this time taking her time.

Off to one side in the hollow, Connor watched, remembering every moment of that kiss from the taste of her lips when they first met to the embarrassed cough of the soldiers in the background that had finally separated them. What an idiot he had been to leave her. What a fool he had been not to turn around and tell Lester to stuff his job. Even when she had told him to go, he should have stood firm and refused to leave her. But, as Helen had pointed out, if he hadn't left her then, they would both be dead by now, leaving mankind with little or no hope for survival.