"Abby, get down!"

Jess' shout made the blonde react instinctively. She dropped to the ground as quick as she could, just in time for a stegosaurus tail to sail right past where her head had just been. She rolled onto her back and shot her EMD at the underside of its stomach before jumping back up and running back into the melee.

It was chaos when Becker, Jess and Abby had arrived at the latest anomaly site. Because of the three anomalies being so close together, there were creatures running everywhere, and no one really knew what to do with them all. There were crews at each anomaly, keeping new creatures from coming through, and there were teams that were chasing after the ones that already had, trying to get them back into their own times.

Because of the pandemonium, Jess hadn't even had the chance to see if Connor's modified device had worked. Their SUV had been attacked by a stampede of stegosaurus as soon as they arrived, and they'd barely had time to flee it before they could be trampled.

They'd split up and each headed for an anomaly, Connor firing information at them in their ears. Jess ran for the first anomaly she saw. It was one of the smaller ones, but would be good for a test of Connor's first device.

Emily was there, and part of the team fighting to keep the creatures in their own time. Jess took a few minutes next to a sheltering tree to set up the device, and then ran out to stand directly in front of it before flipping the switch. A few seconds later, the yellow glow from the anomaly turned blue, and she knew it was working. She saw a couple raptors get sucked into it, and within a minute, it was its usual glowing yellow. Emily then turned on the locking device, and the anomaly closed as a few cheers rang out.

"Connor, it worked!" Jess shouted triumphantly. "One anomaly down."

"Fantastic! Be careful, Jess!"

"Always," she replied, before shooting at the creature that ran past her. "I'm going after the other small one. It'll be easier to get the steg's back through theirs if we're not worried about any other creatures." She gathered up Connor's device, and headed for the far anomaly where she could see Abby shooting at several small dinosaurs. It would have been easier to head for the big one where Matt and Becker were first, but the idea of a stegosaurus or 3 flying over their heads was a bit of a safety issue for them. But as she moved towards Abby, she saw four more dinosaurs coming from the large anomaly closest to her. Realizing that it was more of a safety hazard to leave it open longer, she set herself up and turned the device on once more. She kept low to the ground as she saw the anomaly turn blue and pull the first stegosaurus back in towards it. As they flew by one by one, Jess started to smile again, especially once Matt arrived at her side. They shared a relieved look as they started to realize that they were winning, but were suddenly pulled back to reality by two loud voices shouting.

"JESS!" Becker bellowed as Emily screamed Matt's name at the same time.

The two in question turned around to see a steg flying directly at them. They tried to dive out of the way, but Matt was struck by one of the large plates on the creature's back. The top of it slammed into his torso, dragging him a few feet towards the anomaly before he slipped down it and rolled onto the ground. Jess was caught by its tail, and thrown with it high into the air as she screamed in pain. As she fell to the ground, she bounced from a tree branch and landed hard on her side underneath it with a disturbing thud just as the creature was sucked into the anomaly, and the blue light turned back into the gold.

Neither moved as one of the soldiers closed the anomaly with the locking device. Once it was closed, Emily and Becker raced towards their friends' limp forms. Matt was groaning in pain, clutching at his chest.

Jess lay eerily still on the ground. When Becker reached her side, he grabbed at her arm and waist to gently try and shake her awake. He didn't want to move her too much depending on her injuries, but had to see if she was alive. "Jess, come on!" he called to her.

She let out a soft whimper as she turned herself onto her back. Becker's hand on her waist slid to rest on her stomach, and he looked down when he felt something wet on his palm.

Jess was bleeding heavily from a wound in her stomach. His face paled as he realized that one of the steg's spikes must have stabbed her when she was hit.

"Is she ok?" Emily shouted to him, as she tried to help Matt sit up.

Becker started to answer, but was interrupted by Jess' surprisingly steady voice. "I'm fine, Em. I need you to get Connor's device to Abby so she can close the last anomaly though. He'll walk her through how it works."

Emily looked torn, but did as commanded when Becker said that he'd stay with them both. She nodded, and ran for the device. Becker turned his attention back to Jess, who had started to cough. "Why did you lie to her?" he demanded as he put pressure on her wound.

"Because no matter what happens, they have to finish this. They can't give up," she answered, a tremor in her voice. She looked over to see Matt still on the ground. "You need to get him out of the way, Becker." Becker looked her dead in the eye as if to say 'no way', but she pushed. "I'll keep the pressure on this until you get back, I promise." Seeing the truth in her eyes, he let her place her own hand on her stomach as he ran for his other friend. Carefully but quickly pulling Matt up and grabbing the lost EMD, he hurried them over to the tree where Jess lay. True to her word, she was still holding her stomach tightly. Becker leaned Matt against the tree trunk and handed him his weapon as he turned back to Jess.

"Matt, are you ok to shoot if you need to?" Becker demanded.

"I can shoot, but running is definitely out of the question," was the pained reply.

"No need to run, just don't let anything get the jump on me," Becker said, replacing Jess' hand on her stomach with his own.

"Connor," Jess said into the comms as Becker tried to examine her injury while still staunching the blood flow. "You'll need to help Abby use the device on the third anomaly."

"Jess, I tried, but she says it's not working anymore. What's happened?" he asked, worry evident in his voice.

"I'm giving the other device to Becker and Matt." Becker's head snapped up at his name. "If it works, they can stop this all from happening."

"If what works?" Matt asked from his spot on the tree.

Jess raised her gaze to flicker between the two men as she reached for the device still strapped to her thigh. "Connor's modified his man-made anomaly device so that you can select what time period to set. It should be able to get you home."

"Home?" Becker asked.

"To right after you went through the New Dawn anomaly." Connor answered for her. Becker and Matt looked at each other, not wanting to believe it, and not knowing how they could leave their friends like this.

As if reading their thoughts, Jess spoke again. "This is a time based on the fact that you never came back. If you go back, it'll change everything. None of us will be here like this." They could hear her voice getting weaker each time she opened her mouth.

"Yeah, you could end up stuck in my own time," Matt stated.

"We could, but if you take this with you, things may change." Jess coughed again, bringing up a few drops of blood this time. Becker looked at her in alarm, but she didn't stop. "We didn't have this technology then. Maybe you can modify it like we did so that your time never happens."

"And what about you?" Becker asked, anger and fear seeping into his voice.

Jess turned her gaze back to him as Matt shot at the dinosaur creeping towards his friends. She gave him a sarcastic grin. "I think that no matter what happens, my time here is pretty much up," she confessed.

"No!" Becker shouted at her. "You're not dying on me, Jess."

"Dying?" Emily asked in their ears, panic in her voice.

"What the bloody hell is going on?" Abby demanded over the comms.

"Becker, what's wrong with Jess?" Connor asked.

"She took a spike to the stomach," he told them, sadness evident in his voice. He couldn't say what more was wrong, but the others all put the pieces together.

"If you make it back to your time, you can stop this from ever happening," she told him.

"I won't leave you again," he told her.

"No, it looks like I'm the one doing the leaving this time."

"Dammit, Jess, this isn't funny!"

"Do you see me laughing?" she asked as she coughed again, more blood coming up. Her eyes darted around to look at her surroundings. She finally managed to free the device from its case on her hip, and reached up to press it into Becker's hand. "You have to go."

"I told you, I'm not leaving you. I didn't have a choice last time, but this time I do. And I'm choosing to stay."

"I really didn't hate you," Jess said out of the blue. "I know that you didn't choose to go, and I never blamed you or Matt. I just couldn't get past my own guilt over it."

"Over what?" he asked, confused.

She gave him as fixed a gaze as she could under the circumstances. She knew that everyone could hear her over the comms, but she was well beyond caring. "It's you, Becker," she stated simply. "It's always been you, and it always will be. I've never stopped feeling guilty for not telling you that when I had the chance."

"Jess," he began.

"No, listen, please." She wrapped both her hands around the one that he was using to hold the device she'd just given him. "There's been no one but you since we met. At first I thought it was just a crush, but it just kept growing and growing. No matter what happens, you need to know that. It doesn't even matter how you feel, or felt. I just needed you to know."

Becker could feel the tears in his eyes as he realized that she was saying goodbye. He barely heard Matt shooting another creature over his head and Abby, Connor and Emily shouting through the comms as he stared into her darkening eyes. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, but he knew that glaze that was coming over her eyes, and knew in his heart that there wasn't enough time. So he did the only thing he could think of to convey as much of it to her as possible.

He leaned in, and pressed his lips to hers in a firm yet gentle kiss.

Jess sighed as he pulled away from her a moment later. She gazed at him through half-closed eyes. "I…always wondered…what that would be like," she whispered to him. He choked on his words, and resorted to simply pulling her into his arms to hold her close. "You have to go," she said again.

He pulled back and looked her dead in the eye. "I WON'T leave you."

She took a shuddering breath. "If you get back…to your own time…you won't have to. You'll save…us all."

"I thought we always said that we wouldn't try and change the past," he reminded her.

Jess laughed softly before it broke into a cough. "Matt made the exception…before, so I think…we're within our right…to do it…just this one…more time." She weakly raised a hand and ran it along his cheek. "Just promise…"

"Jess?" Becker asked, worrying as her words slurred together more now.

"Promise that…you'll tell her…tell me…how you feel." Jess looked up at him from her spot in his arms. "I think…deep down…I always knew…but it'd be…nice to…hear it from you."

"I will," he promised. "I swear to you, I will. You'll know."

"Good," she replied in a whisper.

"We got the last one closed, but there's another one opening!" Abby called through the comms, but Becker didn't pay her any heed. He just tried to keep his eyes on Jess', thinking the ridiculous notion that he'd be able to keep her alive by not breaking eye contact. But before he knew what he was doing, he was leaning down and pressing his mouth to hers again. She let out a soft sigh as she kissed him back, and he held her tightly as he ran his lips over hers. But after a few seconds, he realized something.

She wasn't kissing him back anymore.

Becker pulled back from her to see that Jess' eyes had closed, and her already pale skin had gone stark white. When he loosened his grip, her head lolled back against his arm, and he knew she was gone. He let out a soft cry of despair, and pulled her back to him, burying his face in her neck as he held her limp figure.

Matt had shot three more dinosaurs that had come through the latest anomaly before Becker finally began to lay Jess carefully on the ground. When she was flat on her back under the tree, he pressed one more soft kiss to her lips before jumping to his feet with her device tight in his hand. "Matt, we gotta go!" he shouted, wiping the tears from his eyes and putting his EMD strap over his shoulder.

Matt tried to get up, but had to wait for Becker to carefully help haul him to his feet. He let out a sharp yell of pain as he stood straight. "I'm sorry," he told Becker as they moved away from the tree.

"I'm going to get her back," Becker vowed before speaking directly into the comms. "Connor, how do I get this thing to work?"

"The dials on the top will let you pick the date and time. Just twist them until it matches what you want."

Becker could hear the sadness in his friend's voice, and swore to himself that he would fix this mess. Holding Matt to his right side as they moved, he awkwardly used his left hand to twist the knobs on the device as he held it. Once they were a bit further into the clearing, he aimed the device at the empty air and flipped the switch.

The anomaly sprung to life, emitting a soft yellow-green glow.

"Good luck, old friend," Connor said.

"Be careful," Emily cried over the sound of an EMD blast.

"And stay warm," Abby finished, using Jess' goodbye from so many years ago.

"We will," Becker promised before removing his comm and dropping it on the ground. Sparing one last glance at the still figure under the tree, he gripped Matt tighter and ran through the anomaly.