A/N: If you read my previous author note, you're going to be confused and/or annoyed by this chapter. I admit, I changed my mind about who the baby was. C'est la vie. It's more fun this way, I promise, but I'm sorry for the confusion and/or annoyance!
The papers were blank.
And the baby was tired. It rubbed its eyes and then sat on the floor with a plop, and began to cry.
Jo and Zane exchanged looks of mutual horror, Jo still holding Caiti. "Have you ever—?" Jo started as Zane said, "Do you know anything about—?"
Jo was already shaking her head as Zane started shaking his. He looked at the toddler, its round face scrunched up and red as it howled, and then looked back at Jo. He gestured to Caiti, whose face was hidden in Jo's neck, "How about if I take her?" he offered. She'd seemed small earlier but compared to the kid sitting on the floor, she was huge. And he could handle huge. Huge was good.
Jo held on to Caiti a little tighter. Zane could tell from the look on her face that she was feeling the same uncertain urge to panic as he was. Hell.
"It's okay, Caiti," Amy said, stepping forward.
"I know," the girl replied, turning her head and sniffling a little.
"Not you." Amy scooped up the toddler, competently thumping its back comfortingly. "I mean, you, but not that you, this you. Hush now, Caiti. Mi-mi has you."
The toddler paused in its crying to look suspiciously at Amy, and then resumed crying, but almost tentatively. And then it stopped, and its thumb went into its mouth as it looked from one person to another with a puzzled, sleepy frown.
"That's Caiti?" Jo asked.
"Looks just like she used to," Amy answered. "She's a lot easier to pick up than she was, though."
"That's not me," the bigger Caiti said indignantly. "I never cried like that."
"Oh, you so did," Amy answered.
Before the sisters could devolve into a satisfying sibling round of "Did so, did not," the toddler resolved the question by saying, "Me Caiti," and then kicking to be let down. Jo deposited the larger Caiti on the ground, too, and the two Caitis considered one another solemnly.
Zane was flipping through the papers again. They still looked blank. He held them up to the bare light bulb, trying to see if there were indentations on the pages, but it was too dim in the bunker.
"What did she say?" Jo asked. "Something about S.A.R.A.H.?"
Zane ignored the question. "Why would S.A.R.A.H. let Caiti come back here? There's no way this Caiti was hacking. S.A.R.A.H. had to know she was there."
"Maybe S.A.R.A.H. sent her back here," Jo suggested. "Could she reach the power button on the bridge device without help?"
"She was a climber," Amy said. "This one time she – oh." She looked from Jo to Zane and back again, and grinned. "Maybe I won't tell you that. Wouldn't want to discourage you from having kids." Something about her little sister's arrival seemed to have cheered Amy up, Zane noticed, as if she'd decided that this was a fun adventure and not scary after all.
He said as much to her, trying to phrase it carefully so as not to worry her.
"Well, sure," she responded cheerfully. "S.A.R.A.H. solved it, right? In fact, S.A.R.A.H. must have figured out what you needed to do like four years ago, when Caiti was a baby."
"Why wouldn't she just tell us if she knew how to break the loop?" Jo asked, sounding skeptical.
"Need to know," Amy responded promptly. "She's avoiding creating another paradox."
"Or she doesn't know," Zane said slowly, looking at the blank pages. "I need to think about this."
"What do you mean she doesn't know?" Jo asked.
"Caiti, what did S.A.R.A.H. want you to tell us?" Zane asked the smaller of the two Caitis.
She looked at him with wide eyes, thumb securely in her mouth, and didn't answer. He crouched down next to her, and repeated, "Tell me what S.A.R.A.H. wanted you to tell us."
This time she frowned at him, and her lower lip moved out in the beginnings of a pout.
"Uh-oh," Amy said quickly. "Don't do that."
"Come on, Caiti," Zane tried again. "I really need to know."
Before the lip could start to wobble, the bigger Caiti reached out and poked her littler self in the stomach. The little Caiti's mouth fell open with surprise. "Bad girl!" she said indignantly.
"Caiti!" Jo reprimanded the bigger Caiti, almost as shocked as the little Caiti was.
"I was going to cry," Caiti explained. "I remember this." Turning to Amy, she glared. "You said it was a dream. You said it never happened. You said you didn't remember."
"I didn't remember," Amy protested. "I don't remember. What are you talking about?"
"When we camped. With Mommy and Daddy. Only it was different. And you were different." Caiti looked from Jo to Zane to Amy and then shook her head. "We have to watch out for the bad guys," she added earnestly.
Great. Okay, add watching out for the bad guys to the list of things they had to take care of in 1947. Zane looked at the paper again. Blank paper. Why had S.A.R.A.H. sent this back to them?
Baby Caiti apparently decided that enough was enough. She looked around the room, then made a beeline for Jo. "Up," she demanded, raising her arms.
"She needs a nap," Amy offered prosaically, as Jo cautiously lifted the baby.
"And a new diaper," added Jo, sighing.
"We didn't exactly pack for this," Jo hissed at Zane. She was sitting on the ground, one hand resting comfortingly on the back of the motionless toddler. Baby Caiti had finally fallen asleep after an increasingly cranky hour.
"What do you want me to do, Jo?" Zane demanded in a hushed voice. "Do you want me to go try to find a store?"
She sighed. "Can you even buy diapers in 1947?"
"Well, you must be able to," Amy pointed out. "Babies have to wear something."
They had at least three days to wait until the right moment to open the wormhole on Beverly's bridge device and bring Carter and Grant back to the past, and their fallout shelter was not stocked with appropriate supplies.
"S.A.R.A.H says that it if isn't recorded…" Zane said again, for at least the twentieth time.
"Oh, my God," said Jo. "You are driving me crazy! Quit saying that!"
"I'm hoping for inspiration," Zane snapped back.
"We don't need inspiration. We need diapers!"
"Baby me is very messy," said Caiti disapprovingly.
Zane shook his head. She wasn't kidding. Whoever had fed this kid before sending her back to 1947 had been a sadist. The filled diaper had been unpleasant. The second diaper, made out of t-shirt, had nowhere near the absorption it needed.
"I need to go find a store. Or at least some cloth."
"We're on a top-secret military base," Jo snapped. "If you get caught, they will kill you."
Zane rolled his eyes. They were desperate and yet this was all Jo kept saying. At some point, he was going to be willing to risk death to get this baby some absorbent clothes. His eye fell on Caiti – the bigger Caiti – and he frowned speculatively. "What if I bring Caiti?"
"What?" Jo's reaction was immediate. She reached out to big Caiti, and pulled her a little closer.
"Hey, I want to come," Amy protested.
"Nobody on an American military base in 1947 is going to shoot a guy with a kid," Zane told Jo. "I'll just say I'm lost, and our car broke down. They'll probably give us a ride to the outskirts of town."
"There is no town," Jo protested. And then her glance fell on the toddler, and she sighed. "We don't have enough food, either," she admitted. She looked from Caiti to Amy to the other Caiti, and then to Zane and then brought her hands up to cover her face. "Argh."
Zane grinned. Watching the Enforcer try to deal with kids would be seriously amusing if it weren't for the smell of the littlest one.
"I want to come, too," Amy insisted.
Zane shrugged. He supposed that would be okay. Two kids ought to be even safer than one.
"No," said Jo, abruptly pushing herself up off the ground. "I'm the one who's going shopping."
"What?" Suddenly Zane didn't like this plan at all.
Jo smiled at him. "An American military base in 1947 might shoot a guy first and ask questions later. But they won't shoot a woman."
That was exactly the logic that he had just used, but he didn't like it at all when it was Jo at risk. "No way."
"Yes, way. I am not letting the kids go out there."
"Jo –," he started but then fell silent. Hell. She was right.
"I want to come," Amy said again.
"No," said Jo firmly.
"Um, yes," said Zane, equally firmly.
Jo glared at him. Zane could barely believe what he was thinking. Was he seriously volunteering himself to be left alone with two little kids, both of whom had demonstrated tear-producing ability? Was he insane?
"Black belt?" he asked Amy.
"I'm only fifteen," she answered. "I can't get my dan in aikido until I'm sixteen and kick-boxing doesn't have ranks. But I've won regionals in both three years running."
"Good enough," he said. "You're bringing Amy," he told Jo.
"Are you insane?" she demanded.
"You got caught last time, right?" He hadn't forgotten what she'd said in the woods, right after they traveled to the future. Her fear of getting captured had been based on previous experience.
She pressed her lips together, then reluctantly conceded, "Yes."
"Amy is your secret weapon, then."
Amy was bouncing on her toes, delighted at the opportunity to go exploring.
"Are you sure?" Jo asked, and he knew that she was thinking about the two little ones. He grimaced. He'd much rather go himself. But Jo was right: she had the best chance of getting what they needed and getting back, and that was what was most important.
"Yes," said Caiti. "That's right. You and Amy go, Mommy, and Daddy and me and baby me are here. And when the bad guys come, you come back. Come really quickly, please, because I don't like them."
Oh-kay, thought Zane. He looked at Jo and shrugged. They could change time, but should they? If they lived this past as it happened before, were they breaking the loop or reinforcing it?
"What happens to the bad guys, Caiti?" Jo asked carefully. He could tell that she was debating whether she should go or not. Three days without food and they'd be cranky, but they'd survive.
Caiti grinned. "Amy kicks their butts."
"Ooh, yay," Amy clapped.
Zane grinned at Jo and Jo managed a reluctant smile back. "Do we bring diapers back with us?" Jo asked Caiti.
Caiti frowned. "I don't know. Maybe? But you bring candy bars."
Oh, well, candy bars. That decided everything. Zane's eyes met Jo's. She sighed. "Don't get into trouble?" she offered.
"Not until you get back," he agreed. "And don't forget the candy."