Was it really true? When you missed someone so much the one yearned for stayed on your mind to distraction? You couldn't eat, nor sleep? Carlos took another long, slow sip of his coffee. It was the most sustenance he'd had since the ambiguous goodbye. He didn't bother resting the mug down. He thought about her again, sighed and reminisced, bittersweet and unsatisfying. He resisted the urge to continue with what he was currently reading. Another pamphlet, more juggling of words that went straight to his heart while thoughts of her, along with introspection, weighed heavily on his mind.

Was she all right, contentedly reunited with her family at this very moment? Was she thinking of him, as she kissed her son? Made love to her husband? Carlos squirmed where he sat, on his couch, at its right end. Did he begrudge her, her happiness now that she was well and truly gone, and he was left here…all alone with his suffocating thoughts that smothered clear thinking?

She had wanted him to come with her, but in the end, his catapulting ahead into time had not been possible. She'd had a change of heart, some weird revelation about time being royally screwed up if he came along.

Their end of the line had come and she had chosen to go on without him.

"…Goodbye, Carlos."

He'd had to let her go, let her cut and run, out of his life. What was he left with?

The mug felt burdensome. Dipping lower and lower, taking his hand with it, he set the mug down on the saucer resting on the round-edged, glass top end table. The coffee had grown cold long ago.

His mind couldn't stop wandering; he let it, taking him back to the interrogation room where they had restrained her for questioning. The Inspector had been correct about his not being needed in the room. He could have stopped himself from going in. If he had, his heart might not ache as much as it was aching now.

But, Dillon had been so wrong, and galling, painting Kiera as the enemy they'd sought all along. The pariah responsible for the bombing, and the murder of Gardiner was she, from the jump? Unquestionably impossible. Carlos had judged that Dillon had almost begged for that smash to the jaw. Socking him had felt good and wrong at the same time. Then, Kiera had given him that look, the one which begged for absolution while she cried out for permission, never uttering a word. That expression would haunt him for as long as he lived.

Interestingly, less than a week later, very hush-hush, with the feel of sweeping his assumed delinquency under the rug, all charges against him had been dropped.

Carlos crossed his eyes, trying not to have his emotions sink him. He was beginning to feel angry, yet again. His anger was like a comet, unstoppable, huge and made of ice. Had she written him off, had she really?

He refused to believe that she had, despite her wanting to get home so badly.

He gave reading another try, sitting up straighter in the couch against its accommodating backrest. He rubbed his neck, forced himself to concentrate. Julian's thoughts weren't rhetoric; the kid had a brain, thought deep thoughts, spoke pouring his heart into every sentence. The brooding young man was actually quite moving. Ripples of syntax fueled his words. Carlos looked up, really asking himself this probing question this time.

"Are Betty and I truly going to join up with LiberEight?" he voiced aloud so those words would, if they were meant to, startle him. He glared at the blank flat screen of his T.V., questioning what and who he was. Would teaming up with this evolving band of extremists bring what he profoundly wanted most? Julian was a self-proclaimed missionary, preaching more than just 'raging against the machine' at the several meetings he'd attended with Betty. At those discussions, he'd felt as if he'd been betraying Kiera, as though he was turning his back on all that they had fought against, together.

And yet…with each passing day, the corporate world gained ever-increasing power and strength. The 'little guy' was on the endangered species list too.

His anger and guilt marinated in the deafening sound of silence filling his lonely apartment. He whispered her name, wishing she would answer him, firmly knowing how impossible that was.

Having had her stay here felt like the distant past. Her presence among his personal effects had been so effortless, so right. Might she return?

Stop the nonsense, he upbraided, wishing it weren't a foolish pipe dream.

He should have latched onto her in that interrogation room, pulled her into his arms and given her the embrace of her life. At least he would have that and not wish fulfillment. Her lips would still be singed, her heart beating savagely, no pausing, if he had 'manned-up.'

He had wanted to, but…

It had all felt too final, too permanent, their saying farewell. He hadn't wanted to have what they'd had end. He'd chickened-out, all to plainly, nothing simple about it.

He closed his somewhat bloodshot eyes, peering into the blackness of his inner eyelids. Fuzzily, but appealingly, he visualized their recent past. And, wistfully, he murmured…"Kiera. Kiera. Kiera." Persistent, soul-searching remembrances snaked through him, evoking bereavement.

"Someday, some way…we'll be together again," Carlos susurrated. "Bank on it…Kiera." Fingering the pamphlet, with eyes still closed, he laid it aside. Enough insipid eloquence for one night, he thought. Memories intact, he lapsed deeper into his flip-flopping reverie.

…..

Inside her cage, groggy from all the garbage they wantonly kept shooting her up with, she, half-disbelieving, half-crazed, but fully aware that the sound of the voice in her head was one she could never forget, spoke her name. Her furtive gazes bounced from bar to bar, from fellow time traveling captive to fellow demoralized captive. Quivering lips parted to answer him.

"C-Carlos!" Shakily, she tapped the side of her head, close to her forehead. "I-Is that y-you?" Both her temples throbbed. She planted her back deeper into the bars of her prison, gasping for air. She listened with her heart and every ounce of burning zeal in her soul.

Silence, was the maddening reply. Contorting, Kiera held her head between her head like a vice. Straining, when she fell to a crouch, she willed to hear that precious voice whisper in her ear again.

She was not going mad. She was grasping for sanity.

Desperation frayed the edge of her voice. "Carlos, c-can you h-hear m-me?" But—how could this be he? She had never heard his voice in her head before, only Alec's. Was hearing Carlos' even possible?

Fear gripped her, a newer, fresher shock. She was losing it, heckled her. Her mind was being destroyed with the constant drugging, the ever-present shackles of being held against her will. Kiera shuddered, her eyesight racing around her jail. "No-no-no," she yelled at the top of her voice. "Get me out of here!"

She dropped into a crouch again, hands flattened at the sides of her head.

Quietly, hushing her whispers, she meekly uttered, "Carlos. I need you. Help. Me…" Following body-racking flinching, she beseeched, "Please! Carlos!"

…

"Kiera!" He was on his feet in less than two seconds flat. His eyes did a mad dash about his living room, as though he played a feverish game of hide-and-seek with her. Where was she? He had heard her as plainly as he could hear weapons blazing in a shootout. "Kiera?" The look of puzzlement on his countenance froze. His mouth had gone painfully dry. Was this the result of thinking about her night and day, day and night, driving himself crazy? His night dreams of her had turned into daydreams. Now, he was hearing things, her voice, of course.

But, he was not dreaming. He heard her, he really did. Straight-up, he wasn't hallucinating.

She called his name.

"Kiera," he answered, his voice booming. "I'm here." He chased imaginary images around the room. "Where?" The furrows in his forehead were deep treads. "Are you?"

Her voice cracked when she replied, "I—I don't k-know…"

"You don't—"

"I'm a prisoner. In a cell. I'm being tortured. Help me, Carlos, help me escape!"

If it had been possible, at that very instant, Kiera would have been free, he, her intrepid liberator. Bordering on hysterical, Carlos shouted, "Are you in your time?"

"I d-don't think so. The Freelancers—"

"The Freelancers! What the hell do they have to do with it?"

"They captured me. Not only me. All the time travelers who came to twenty twelve."

"What about that guy Jason?"

She hadn't seen him, didn't actually know. "I can't say what happened to him."

Snorting, Carlos rammed home, "Alec? Is he among the prisoners?"

"I don't know if they caught him, either. Why? He isn't one of us." Anguish was palpable in her tone. Additionally, Alec was no longer on her side; he was on his family's. Escher was his father? Kiera could not wrap her mind around that for even a second. She refrained from saying anything about this new wrinkle to her partner. "I'm…I'm… Trapped. I've tried to escape. They're too powerful, Carlos. They stripped me of everything. All my tech. I'm scared. Scared I'll die here. I'll never get home to my family. Not ever. They'll keep me until they win."

How she sounded drove him nuts. "Listen to me, Kiera, listen. I'm going to Alec. Right now." Already he had his jacket on and the apartment door wide open.

Maybe she needed to tell Carlos about Alec and his compromised affiliation; he and Escher were kin, not Jason.

Before she could say a word, Carlos blatantly cut in, "I'm coming to get you, Kiera. No matter where you are—I'll find you, and get you the hell out of there. Do you understand!" He had bellowed those last sentiments. "I'll find you no matter where you are. Hang on. Be strong—be strong, Kiera. For me!"

"B-But, Carlos—"

"I'm coming to get you! Regardless of where!" Quaking with ire, outrage, determination and overwhelming love for the woman he would never surrender, he reassured, "For me!"

She heartened, despite the impossibility of his vows, hearing his verve and unbreakable loyalty. The one person who had never failed her, had been in her corner, and still was, would pluck her from this unspeakable nightmare.

Carlos Fonnegra, an immutable force, determined to clash with the obscure time police.

Against all odds, and through time and space, he would move heaven and earth to save her. He was Carlos, lionhearted and dynamism to be reckoned with.

"It's war, Kiera. You're my personal cause!"

For no reason other than she should have told him before she'd said goodbye, she stumbled, "I… Carlos…I" Closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, as though it were her last, she irrefutably vouched, "I love you."

"Tell me again when we're standing face-to-face."

Giving that half-smile, that half-her face was cracking into many pieces facial expression, which he could not see, but if he could have, he
would have melted, she promised, "I will."

She clasped her hands together, wringing them, as she slid down along the bars to the hard plastic floor.

…..

Less than twenty minutes later, Carlos arrived at Alec's lab. Not knowing what to expect, he was surprised when, upon being identified, Alec cordially invited him in. So far so good, Carlos thought, because he hadn't expected him to be there. Once he was admitted, he bolted down the stairs and went aghast when he saw who waited for him at the bottom of the steps.

"Hello, Carlos." Emily smiled at him engagingly, while offering him a glass of white wine. "Guess I'm the next to the last person you expected to see among the scientific playthings."

Alec's eyes met Carlos'. He watered down the grin he had on his face, but still rolled his twinkling eyes in merriment. "I had to save her."

With urgency, Carlos fired off, "Now—it's Kiera's turn! The Freelancers have her!"

"What?" Alec barked, stunned into seriousness. "How do you know this?"

"She reached out to me." Carlos thunked the side of his head with index and forefinger. "Don't ask me how. Like I'd know. She just did." The urgency in his tone exploded, "You've got to help me get her back, Alec!"

Alec did a double take. Funny, he hadn't heard a peep from Kiera, not since he had made the jump to reclaim Emily. "And how am I supposed to do that?" he snapped.

"You got her back." Carlos threw judgmental eyes Emily's way; she gave faint nods. She had no idea how her impressive boyfriend had done that either. What mattered was, he had.

"That's different," Alec countered, his eyes having fallen on the time machine, parked snugly in its mysterious berth. "I had specific coordinates to work with. A start and end point. Without those, nada, zip. Ain't goin' nowhere."

He wasn't completely in the dark about the Freelancers and their influential sphere of operation. Now wasn't the time to expose the deviancies of their parallel world.

"Don't argue semantics with me, boy wonder. You're the only one who can track her down, find her, so we get her back. You're doing it. End of discussion."

Emily threw support Carlos' way. "You can do it, Alec. You know you can." Her eyes pleaded, seeing Carlos' resolute determination. She espoused love when she saw it.

Wavering a fraction, Sadler, took in Carlos' stony face with its eyes steeped in fiery, hell-bent resolve, leaving no room for deviation from his course. Alec considered, picturing the irrepressible Kiera in his mind, their ups and downs, their falling-outs and their alliance. She was like a big sister and when could a younger brother let his big sis down? Kiera was worth the risk; he owed her because it was the right thing to do. Whatever foul thing that had happened to her, if he could help her, he had to. At his computer, Alec began, working from speculation and enigmatic data, the arcane coupled with the logical.

"I'll try," sailed over his shoulder.

"That's more like it," Carlos rewarded, eyeing the time travel device as though it were the Holy Grail. Already, electric sparks arced as they curved from it. He was ready for anything and his entire being showed it. His hands clenched and unclenched. Lips barely moving, in an undertone, Carlos said, "For you, my darling from the future…" Gearing up, he awaited what the next few moments held.

"Emily," Alec said over the gathering noise, "wait here. Don't set foot out of this lab. If Kellog comes calling, lock him out."

Talk about impossible, since Matthew was behind bars too.

Nodding, she complied, canting her head. "You've got it." She began stepping back from the charged environment.

"Carlos," Alec said.

"Yeah?"

"I can't guarantee anything," he tipped.

Fonnegra nodded, a look of 'what must I do' etched in his face.

Alec snatched the live device from its mooring, then lunged at Carlos, grappling his arm with a strong hand. "No matter what, don't lose your hold on me."

"Gotcha."

Emily held her breath along with them.

With the next wheeze, they were gone.

TBC…when Season 3 begins in the U.S.