Well, I did it to myself. I saw the end of the season. Then I sat and struggled with the rest of this story, because the whole thing with Brad and the cabin tossed a serious kink in the way I saw things happening between Keira and Carlos in this maybe universe I dreamed up. I debated writing the rest of this and pretending that nothing actually happened between her and Brad, or her and Alec. Then I realized that my muse just wasn't going to have it, and I was going to have to grab the ball and run with it. So if this feels a little bit awkward, bear with me. I'm still putting the pieces together myself.

Picking up after the scene in the park in Season 3, where Brad's unit comes through to this timeline.

Keira

"What the hell is going on?" Her side burned with every breath, her wrist was bruised and sore where Brad had grabbed her and dragged her into the shadows, and she had no idea what the hell was going on. She supposed she really should have been scared, but the truth was, she was just pissed off.

One little bit of normalcy. That's all she'd wanted. Now that she'd accepted that she was going to be staying in this time, she wanted a shot at a normal life. Maybe even, god help her, a normal relationship. She hadn't expected things with Brad to happen the way that they had, but she kind of liked where it was going.

Oh, she knew a big part of his appeal was that he was just like her-a displaced time traveler that had told his family goodbye in an attempt to make a better future for them. That he'd done it willingly while she'd been ripped away didn't matter. They were both broken, both struggling to keep their head above water surrounded by people they didn't know in a time they didn't understand.

She'd thought maybe, when they were sitting on the porch of the cabin, that maybe they'd be able to find something together. The closest thing to peace that two people like them could have. Only now there was someone out there from Brad's past-their potential future-that apparently wanted to take that away.

God, she couldn't buy a break.

"They're droids," Brad said grimly. "Pre-programmed for a specific purpose, designed to cut down anything and anyone that's in their way. Ground troops will be behind them."

"What are they here for?"

"I don't know." He turned to look at her, his face dark and shadowed in the moonlight. "But if I had to guess, I'd say they're here to kill Matthew Kellogg."

Of course they were. She still hadn't wrapped her head around the idea that Matthew Kellogg was the man behind the inevitable destruction of their future-but then, she knew it wasn't Alec. Her Alec had stepped into the shoes of the other Alec, taking his rightful place at the head of Piron, and he had promised to make it his mission to make sure that the future was free of the nightmares that haunted her.

Looked like that hadn't happened. Damn Kellogg. What had he done?

"What do we do?"

"Our best bet is to stay out of sight until the ground troops arrive, then make contact. Hopefully they recognize me. I assume, since I'm the one they gave the device to, that my unit will be the one to respond if I send a signal back-but Keira, there are no guarantees." He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her close and planting a quick kiss on her lips. "If they don't know me, they might shoot me on sight."

"Great." Damn it. "Don't you have a plan that doesn't end in you being shot?"

"People aren't going to miss this Keira, which means someone's going to be on the phone to the police soon enough. I need to make contact quick and fill them in on what's going so they can call the droids back and regroup, or your friends are going to be caught right in the middle of it. And trust me Keira, that is NOT a good place for them to be."

Carlos

Fan-freaking-tastic. Frustrated, Carlos threw his pen down on his desk and leaned back in his chair. His eyes were burning, his head was pounding, and he hadn't actually written a word in his report in over an hour. He debated going home, but dismissed that idea almost as fast as it came. He could go out, but he didn't think he could deal with people tonight-and the last thing he wanted to do was slip back into the rabbit hole of drink and depression that he'd slid into when Keira was shot.

Of course, even that would be better than what he was feeling right now. At least back then he'd been able to pretend the woman working beside him day in and day out wasn't his Keira. She'd still be holding him at arm's length, and he wasn't the keeper of her secrets. He didn't know how much was hiding behind those walls of hers. He didn't know how it felt to be the one to hold her when she woke in the night, or how much he would feel waking up with her the next morning.

He didn't know that he loved her yet, and because he didn't know that he loved her he didn't know how much it would hurt to have her turn to someone else.

He hadn't believed it, not really. She was his partner. It had taken so long for him to pull down the walls between them, both when she'd first arrived and after she'd been shot. That intimacy had been hard won, the end result of tears and blood and anger and sacrifice for both of them. It was inconceivable to him that less than two weeks after the night they'd spent together, she'd open up to someone else.

And wasn't that the kicker? he thought dryly, shoving away from his desk and walking back toward the break room. After everything he had been through, all of the hoops he'd jumped through, this man, this soldier from the future, just waltzes into the picture and walks away with the only thing Carlos wanted.

A chance with Keira.

He should have known. Things between he and Keira had been different after that night at his house. She'd opened up more, drawing him into her plans, telling him more about what was going on in her life. When she'd told him her crazy plan to kidnap Alex he'd gone along with it-not because he thought it was a good idea, but because she did, and he was willing to trust her. He figured getting everything with Alec straightened out was the first step toward helping her rebuild what she thought she'd lost-a chance at a normal life. He actually felt good about it, like maybe they were starting to lay the foundation for something solid. A chance for both of them to make something real, a life that was built on the present instead of the past…or the future.

Looked like she was taking that chance, alright. She just wasn't taking it with him. He had no idea how in the hell he was supposed to live with that.

He wasn't going to figure it out tonight. Flicking off the overhead light, Carlos stretched out on the couch on the far wall of the break room. It smelled like cigarettes and leather and sweat and a thousand sleepless nights, and the familiarity of it lulled him into a light, restless sleep.

It seemed he'd no sooner dozed off than someone came barging through the door.

"Just got a 911 call from Piron. All hands on deck. You're not going to believe this."