'You're staring,' he said as he dropped down into the chair opposite me at the desk.

I tore my attention off Jensen Lewis, tightening my grip on my pen as though trying to remind myself that I should have been working. I looked down at my paper. 'Least I didn't shout in his face,' I replied.

Nick leant forward, resting his elbow on the desk. 'I didn't shout,' he said weakly. Presumable because he knew it was a lie.

'Did,' I returned.

He'd tried to convince Jensen Lewis that he wasn't Jensen Lewis at all. And even though I'd been there beside him and completely understood what was going through his mind I hadn't come to his defence. 'Okay,' Nick amended, 'I mean, I didn't mean to scare him though.'

'Did,' I repeated without looking up from annotating corrections onto the pages of photocopies.

'Would you stop that?' he said.

I shrugged my eyebrows and tried not smile at the fact he found it amusing despite his tone. To had to hide his smile by spinning his chair to turn his back to me.

' Hey,' Connor called out, as he pushed off from his desk and rolled over in his chair towards us, 'you're staring again, Cutter.'

Nick huffed, spinning his chair back to face us, this time not bothering to hide his grumpiness.

'You guys got that meeting with Lester today?' Connor continued. He pulled the slide from the microscope on my table and put it up to his eye, then, looking it through, he turned to find the light.

'Yeah,' Cutter responded. 'We need that detector, soon as possible, so we need to start building it.'

'Got a debrief first,' I said as I reached over and took the slide off Connor. He pouted as I slipped it out of his hand– probably assuming it was just going to put it back on the desk–but I surprised them both by raising it to my own eye and trying to balance it like a monocle. 'Whole two years in the past thing.'

'You know– I was thinking about that,' Connor said back, 'it's a shame it's all like classified and that. You could have written a book, A, we could have made millions.'

I wasn't so sure. I looked up from my paper but didn't stop writing.

It honestly wasn't that exciting. Most of the time I was hungry, tired, too scared to stop walking just in case I missed the anomaly by a few steps. At least, for the first few months. After that, the next few months were bleak. I didn't calm down and let myself settle into the ambiguity of it until past the one-year mark. After that I found the routine of everyday exceptionally mundane.

'Anna!'

Connor's hand enclosed around mine to stop the constant scrawling of my pen, and when I looked down I realised I'd come off the sheet of paper and started forging a path of words across the table. The slide across my eye slipped out of place and rattled down against the table.

'I mean…' Connor continued, 'I don't mean to… you know… but did you think you'd make it back?'

I sucked in my cheeks. 'Yeah.' I knew I'd make it. I knew in my bones. 'Not enough just to survive it,' I said, 'the after is worse.' The recovery. That's where it would really get me. I looked down at my watch. I needed to go. 'Be back in a minute.' Realistically I knew it would take much longer than that.

As I went through the double doors leading to the foyer outside of Lester's office, a small man straightened in the seat behind his desk and called out to me. 'Miss Havisham?'

I didn't answer. I came to a gradual halt in front of Lester's office doors. He was still on the phone. He saw me through the glass and held up a finger to say he'd be a minute.

'Miss Havisham, I'm sorry, you can't go in yet.'

'Can see,' I returned. I turned away from the office door. Glancing around, I saw the name tag on the top of the man's desk and picked it up. 'You're what…' I asked the man who I hadn't seen do anything but sit outside the office for the past few weeks, 'his secretary?'

He opened his mouth, flustered or frustrated and reached up to quickly adjust his tie. 'I'm – I'm a civil servant too.'

I grimaced.

'You know that Miss Havisham. I've been here since the start.'

'So you say.'

'Miss Havisham?' Lester called, now off the phone and waiting in the doorway to his office. 'Christ's sake Leek, if I've got a meeting before 10 a.m. then I'm obviously on a tight schedule for the day, don't waste my time chit-chatting with people.'

'Sorry sir, I didn't–'

'Ah!' Lester held up a hand. 'Come through Miss Havisham.'

Half an hour later, Nick came in. I was only halfway through recounting the long and complicated journey through the anomalies that had eventually led me back here.

It wasn't important.

It just seemed frustrating that he needed to know it all anyway, so I was quick to stress the importance of moving the subject on.

It became apparent to us both very early on that Lester had very little knowledge about the actual science behind the operation he was running.

'Every time an anomaly opens, it gives off a burst of radio interference,' Nick explained. Behind his desk, Lester nodded, keeping up so far with the idea of radio waves. 'We didn't spot it before because we weren't looking for it.'

'And you can build a machine that detects this interference?' Lester clarified.

'Yes,' I said. 'Like tracking down a pirate radio station.'

'It's the same thing,' Nick continued in explanation. 'Then we can also develop a hand-held detector to work with short distances.'

'And we'll be able to spot the anomalies as soon as they open?' Behind him, the small man leant against Lester's chair, and Lester quickly shot a glare up at him. The man moved back.

'Well yes. That's the idea.'

'Will it be expensive?' Lester asked.

I folded my arms over my chest and shrugged a nonchalant shoulder. 'Only if we do it properly.'

The small man leant in to say something to Lester like it was something Nick and I shouldn't be able to overhear, and yet he didn't make any attempts to lower his voice. 'I think this is something we should consider, sir. Seems to be our most significant breakthrough to date.'

I frowned, glancing across at Nick to silently question where they found this guy.

'Yes I do understand the implications,' Lester snapped back. 'Fine... tell Leek what you need and he'll see to it.'

Nick and I shared a look. 'We want Connor to supervise the work though,' Nick said.

Lester raised an eyebrow. 'Wouldn't this be something you'd be better doing yourself?'

Again I shrugged my shoulder. 'Want Connor to do it,' I repeated.

'Fine. But he reports to Leek.'

By mid-morning I'd finished the pile of outstanding paperwork from the Castle Cross shopping mall incursion and decided to take a break.

Apparently it was a Thursday. It didn't take much convincing to get Connor to come with me so that we could go to the video store and pick something up.

Half an hour later I started to think it might have been a mistake. I'd forgotten how fussy Connor was with movies. That whole time I'd been trapped in the past I hadn't been able to stop thinking about Thursday nights, the extended editions, pepperoni pizza. I'd missed it.

I'd missed squishing in all five of us onto the three-seater couch in the boy's house.

I'd missed the late-night supermarket runs when we ran out of ice cream and gin. One night Connor was so pissed he'd brought a pink acoustic guitar out with him and tried to play it whilst we'd skated along. To this day I have no idea where he got it from.

I'd missed Contract Whist and Jenga games. We tried Monopoly once but the board got flipped 5 minutes in. I'd missed the company most of all.

Connor was flicking almost aggressively through the indie cult collection, muttering under his breath as the cases clacked together. 'Uh,' he grumbled in deflation, 'seriously… there's nothing good here. Uh. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…'

I frowned. 'My choice tonight Connor,' I reminded him.

'What are you talking about? You chose last time.'

His memory can't be that bad. It had only been like a few weeks ago for him. Despite being much longer for me I could still remember it clearly.

The same thing had happened last time; it had taken 45 minutes to suggest Texas Chainsaw Massacre again and I'd been so bored I didnt have the energy to argue with him. 'Let's have something different,' I said with a sigh.

'What?' he grumbled, 'like this…' he flopped towards the romance stand and pulled out the closest option. He held it up. 'The holiday?'

I looked from the DVD to him. 'Know you're joking but Jude Law looks really fucking good in that photo.'

'Really, cause this looks like my worst nightmare.'

I huffed. It wasn't worth it. 'Fine. Need to pee anyway. Meet you back at yours. Choose,' I surrendered, 'just not horror, for a change. And no action. And definitely no dinosaurs. Bye…'

'Bye...'