In the time we'd been gone, the staff from the Home Office had definitely been busy; a tent had been erected over several tables, and there were crates upon crates and boxes upon boxes of all sorts of scientific equipment laid out beneath it.

We saw the white of the tent through the trees long before we pulled up to it.

Connor was waiting for us.

'Gorgonopsid,' I said to him at the exact same time he did as I jumped out the car. He walked towards us. 'You worked it out.'

'–that's what the database is for, right?'

I hummed. 'Where's Stephen?'

'Gone to find it.' I shared a weary glance with Cutter as he rounded the front of the truck. And apparently sensing that there was something we weren't telling him, Connor looked back and forth between us with a frown. 'What?' he asked.

'We're going through,' Nick said.

His eyes widened. 'What?' he repeated.

'Me, and the Captain, and Anna,' Nick clarified, 'and–'

'Can I come?' he asked hopefully.

Nick paused, presumably to make it seem like he was thinking about Connor's request, before he frowned. 'You know what, maybe next time. I was hoping Stephen would be here. Call him for me?'

Connor nodded as he quickly pulled his phone out his pocket. 'Okay.' As Connor dialled and lifted his phone to his ear, I heard a rumble of an engine and the ground vibrated beneath us again as more Home Office vehicles started to come down the track through the trees towards the clearing.

Captain Ryan got out of one of the vehicles. 'So,' he said, as he walked through the dirt towards us, 'I hear I'm taking you two with me.' And when neither me nor Nick responded, he continued. 'What we're gonna do first is get the medics in to check you out, make sure you're both fit and healthy enough, considering we don't know what's gonna happen on the other side.' I nodded; I would have been surprised had that not been the case. 'Don't worry,' he furthered. 'I'm a gulf-war veteran, I have extensive desert experience, I'll keep you both safe.'

Nick didn't say anything. He did that same thing that I'd seen before, where he managed to both nod and shake his head simultaneously as he walked away.

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Captain Ryan turn his head towards me. 'Is he okay?' he asked.

In truth, I had no idea. But not wanting to speak on Cutter's behalf when he hadn't asked me to, I just sort of hummed in suggestion of a reply. I turned to Captain Ryan. 'Thank you, for your service,' I said. Then I stepped away from the vehicles where the people were unloading equipment, and carrying them over into the tent.

The medic checked me over first. It took him about 5 minutes.

He finished by shining a light into my eyes, to assess the reaction of my pupils in reference in the synapses in my brain. And after he gave me the all-clear Captain Ryan steered me off so that I could pack up a rucksack with various bits of equipment I thought I might need once we were on the other side. I searched through the tables for pots and pipettes and scissors for samples. And after collecting a various number of medical supplies– just in case– I went back to find the others.

As I waited for the medic to finish with Nick, I stood in front of the anomaly, fingers pressed against my mouth as I wondered how I would ever be able to understand all this. Rex was circling over my head, presumably making the most of being freed from the cage they'd used to transport him back here.

'Call Stephen again,' Nick said.

Connor already had his phone against his ear. 'He's not answering,' he responded.

I glanced briefly down at my watch, before I turned, looking back over my shoulder to Nick. And I saw Captain Ryan coming back through the trees towards us, he gave a me a brief smile, and nodded for me to join him beside Cutter.

'It's 18:55. I want to be back before 20 hundred hours.'

He came to a stop beside me, my gaze flitted briefly to him and I immediately jolted away in reflex at the sight of the gun around his neck. I backed up, stepping incidentally right into Connor's personal space. H hands came down to rest on my shoulders. 'Hey,' he said in a whisper, 'it's okay.'

I swallowed the lump in my throat but said nothing.

'If first contact works out, we'll take it from there. Listen, this isn't really a trip for tourists, but considering no one else seems to have any clue what the hell is going on here, I can allow this mission under the circumstances that you both listen to me.'

I nodded softly; I wasn't going to argue with him.

Opposite, Nick pushed himself rather reluctantly up out his chair. 'When we asked to go through, I didn't think we'd be taking soldiers with us.'

'Like you said,' Captain Ryan nodded understandingly back at him, 'no one knows how dangerous it's going to be on the other side of that... anomaly.'

Rex caught my attention, he flitted down, swooping towards us and landing right in my arms, and it interrupted anything either of us could have said in response.

The captain gave us a final nod, before he turned on his heel and walked back towards the anomaly, waiting for us to follow.

'One hour,' Nick said, as I wrapped my arms tighter around Rex, 'one hour in the past, in the most significant natural phenomenon known to man in the history of time.' He sighed. 'It's not enough.'

'Then we have to make the most of it,' I replied.

And he looked back at me, his eyes washed over my face, studying me like he was trying to interpret the actuality of my expression. 'Are you sure about this?'

His question caught me somewhat off-guard. And frowning, I responded. 'Of course.'

He resolved himself with a nod. 'Okay,' he said, as his lips started to curl up into a warm, broad, and excited smile, 'come on then.'

As he started towards Captain Ryan and the anomaly, I caught Connor's eye. 'Have you still got that compass?' I questioned.

He started patting down his pockets before he felt it, inside his jacket, and reached in to get it. 'Yeah,' he said, 'here–'

'No, you keep it,' I returned. 'Can you take a reading as soon as we've gone through, and half an hour after, we should see if he integrity of the field is compromised or warped by travel through the ... um...' I didn't really have a word for it. 'Event horizon.'

He smiled. 'Yeah, course.'

'Thanks,' I said, as I quickly shifted Rex in my arms so that I could take my coat off– the climate in the Permian would be much two warm to need a winter coat– before I settled him in my grasp. 'Right. Take care of yourself, Con,' I said.

He stared back at me, a familiar look of confused amusement marring his brow. 'I'm not going anywhere,' he replied.

'That doesn't mean you don't need to be careful,' I returned.

'I'll be fine.' He reached in, wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug I couldn't return, before he pulled back, and offered his fist towards me, and instinctively I bumped my own against it. 'Good luck.' And I had turned, walked back towards Nick and the Captain before I heard him calling out to me again. 'Oh, wait!'

And we all stopped, just in front of the anomaly, the light shining around us like a halo, to look back at him.

Connor held up a camera. 'We're making history...' he said.

I heard Nick sigh under his breath. 'Aye,' he agreed, 'go on then.'

'Smile.' He raised the camera to his eye, and clicked a picture. The was a brief flash, then the polaroid printed. 'And a silly one.'

I heard myself laughing as a turned on my heel, threw a peace sign up at him over my shoulder, and I stepped up to the edge of the anomaly.

It was right there.

So close.

As Nick stepped into my peripherals, I turned my head to him, and found his expression mirrored my own. This was it. 'After you,' he said.

I turned my head back towards the anomaly and blew out a long breath from between my parted lips. Okay.

I took one step forward, then another, and I passed through the anomaly.

And I had expected it to feel a certain way. Like a tingling or a buzzing through my body, but there was nothing, like I hadn't even left the forest at all and was just walking down the tracks between the trees, but the woodland melted away, and in a flash of white it shifted.

There were mountains off in the distance, with clumps and clusters of bright green trees and woodlands dotted across the landscape between us. The ground was rocky, and felt like sand underfoot, but it was a dark slate grey.

I didn't know what to say.

I heard Nick's footsteps behind me, and a moment later he and Captain Ryan crunched down through the gritty ground towards me to stop at my side on the incline.

'Fuck...'

Nick exhaled. 'Hmm,' he agreed. 'I– I...' he turned; eyes wide in wonder as he looked up at our surrounding.

I bent down, put Rex on the ground, and gave him one final fond pat as he chirped back at me. Then, turning his head to look up to the sky, he took off.

I tried to follow him with my gaze but he disappeared off into the shrubbery and camouflaged against it.

'Give me an hour.' At the sound of Nick's voice, I pushed myself back up and onto my feet. 'One hour,' he continued, 'on our own.' Captain Ryan opened his mouth to respond but Nick was quick to interrupt 'I've got a radio! Miss Havisham, come on.'

'Nick, I– I've got to take readings, collect samples, I can't–'

'Come on,' he repeated more imploringly, 'we're in the past. Millions of years ago. You have to come and look around!'

I guess he had a point.

And he knew it; he stared into me like he was daring me to join him. And the second I nodded; his face broke out into a grin.

I skidded down the hill towards him, and we walked away together.

We knew not to go far. We had to stay close to the anomaly for our own safety if nothing else, and for the most part, we walked in a comfortable silence, too distracted by the landscape and the wildlife around us to even begin to consider holding a conversation.

Nick was in front of me. He pointed out a heard of Scutosaurus and talked about the geology of the landform a little, and every now and again I'd reply with some theory about the anomaly and the time we were in, and how the evolution of the flora and fauna could be significant to understanding our own species' back home.

We got to the top of the hill just as the sun had started to set. It went down behind the summit of a hill opposite us, dying the sky a melted mix of yellow and orange.

'It's really... it's really beautiful out here,' I stated, as the wind whipped through my hair and I reached up to hold it out of my face.

'Oh, aye,' Nick agreed, slightly out of breath from the climb, and turning again on his heel so that he could glance all the way around at the landscape. 'I can understand... if she came through here– Helen– she wouldn't have wanted to come home.'

It took me a second to remember where I'd heard that name before. 'Your wife?' I questioned.

'Ex-wife,' he corrected, 'we divorced years before she went missing, but... we were still trying to work together. What if she found an anomaly in the woods?'

'You think she would have gone through?'

'I think it's a possibility.'

'Then... you think she could be here somewhere?' I questioned further. He brought his attention around to me.

But he didn't respond. 'What's your story Miss Havisham?' he asked. 'Tell me about you.'

'What do you want to know?'

He just shrugged. 'Oh, anything,' he said. 'What about your family? Besides Connor I mean.'

'Well, actually that's pretty much it besides our Nana. My parents died a couple of years ago.' It felt like longer, and at the same time it felt like no time had passed. In truth the situation was quite complicated but he didn't need to know that.

'I'm sorry.'

'Thanks, but you don't have to say that. It is what it is, you know. We all have our time and we don't get to stay any longer even if we want to.'

He nodded, his mouth opening as though to respond when the sound of Captain Ryan's voice echoed over to us from all the way across the mountain side, and we both whipped our heads around towards him.

'Professor!' The captain stepped out of the treeline and waved across to us. 'Professor, over here!'

We quickly negotiated a path down the rocks and made our way over to him. The captain just pointed back through the trees.

His expression alone set me on edge. There was a look in his eye that seemed somewhat alarming, and when we all came out of the woodland into a clearing, it became suddenly apparent what he was concerned about.

There was a wreckage, the ground was covered with crates and sheets like the remnants of tents littered across the dirt between broken tree branches and all sorts of different pieces of military equipment.

'My god.' Nick crouched down, flipping open one of the boxes and riffling through the tins of food and chocolate bars. 'Somebody's been here before us.'

'Well, whoever it was didn't get far,' Captain Ryan said, 'over here.' He quickly turned and walked back through the trees.

As he came out in another clearing, my eyes immediately fell to the skeleton half buried in the dirt.

Nick stopped right beside it, dropping down to brush some of the soil away from the skeletons face, and just as I stepped up beside him, my foot hit something.

I stopped and crouched down to dig through the dirt in search of whatever it was I'd just accidently kicked. My fingers enclosed around something solid, and as I pulled it out I saw it looked like a camera.

'Nick?'

He brought his head around towards me, just as I reached out an arm to pass it to him. I heard his breath hitch. 'It's HC,' he said, after he cleared his throat, 'it's Helen Cutter.'

And there was a momentary silence that passed over us like a big grey shadow. 'Is it her?' Captain Ryan asked.

I swallowed. 'Um.' I reached out, brushing the dirt from the skeleton. 'The pelvis... it's a male.'

'How did he die?' Captain Ryan asked.

But there wasn't much that I could tell just from looking at the bones. I shook my head. 'I- I don't know.' I put a hand over my heart and tried to stop an almost painful feeling flooding through my chest. 'I think it was painful. Maybe something attacked him. I mean, it obviously wasn't a lack of food– the crates are full.' And as I breathed in there was a sourness in my nostrils like the smell of blood.

'Dehydration?' Captain Ryan suggested.

'Maybe, but I don't think so. But if this body was buried, then someone must have got away.'

The captain looked down at his watch. 'Look, it's time to go,' he said. 'So, let's get back to the anomaly, you can collect whatever samples you need to there before we go home.'

'No,' Nick replied, 'I'm gonna stay.'

'What?' Captain Ryan returned.

'I'm gonna stay.'

I opened my mouth before I even knew what it was I wanted to say, but before I could even get a word out to question what the hell he was thinking Captain Ryan lunged forward, slamming the butt of his pistol into the back of his head. Nick fell to the ground.

I gasped. 'What the fuck are you doing?'

Captain Ryan glanced back at me unapologetically as he quickly ducked and picked up Nick's dead weight to throw him over his shoulder. 'No offense, Miss Havisham, but I was told to use whatever means necessary to bring you two home. Lester thought you might try something like this.'

'You can't just go around knocking people out!' I argued as the Captain started to retreat back up the hill, through the clearing and towards the woodland, back in the direction of the anomaly.

'He'll be fine.'

'Yeah, no thanks to you.' And I had to jog to catch up with him. 'Seriously.'

'Hey,' he returned, 'I told you, don't make me knock you out too.'

'You'd do that?'

'To keep you safe and get you home? You bet I would.'