He didn't say anything when he stuck his head around my office door – and if anything that was worse– because the sound of him clearing his throat made me jump, and I snapped my head up just in time to see him make a very dramatic point of looking at his watch.

Oh shit.

I looked down at the time on my own wrist. 'Fuck,' I returned, 'sorry, I–'

'Don't apologise, Miss Havisham, just hurry up!' Nick returned in amusement, as I started sifting through the papers on my desk and started pulling random pages together. 'I'm starving. What are you doing?'

'There's…' My voice trailed off like I was suddenly too distracted to continue. My office was a mess. The little room off the main corridor, a lot smaller and darker than my lab at the end, served mainly as a dumping ground. I was never in here; it had never been tidied, and usually that wasn't an issue but my workspace in the hub was also way too overcrowded, so I'd come back here, dumped the papers I was working on onto an already overflowing mound, and attempted to wrestle them down flat.

Now I couldn't find the pages I'd brought in with me.

'Anna?'

'Hmm?'

He stopped opposite me on the other side of my desk and smiled. 'The world is not gonna end tonight because you didn't solve your equation before dinner, you know?'

I glanced up, grinning, but simply shook my head. 'No, Nick, I finished, I just needed to cross reference with the–' I cut myself off, eyes moving slowly to nothing in particular when I realised. 'I left it in my medical lab.'

He frowned. 'Weren't you just up there?

'Yeah– had a lovely chat with Denise. Couldn't find it, but I know where I put it now.'

'I've told you before, you've got to stop leaving your stuff in so many different places. You have a filing cabinet.'

'Filing cabinets are for wimps.' I slid down off my stool. 'I'll just be a minute.'

'No, no,' he returned, 'after. Come on. I need some food. So do you.' He nodded his head back to the door.

'Yeah, alright, okay.' I rounded the desk, meeting him in the doorway.

We'd barely taken three steps down the hallway when the alarm sounded.

An anomaly.

And he groaned. 'Oh, now that's just perfect.'

I started to pull him towards the hub. 'If you're that hungry why don't you just steal Lester's pack-up again.'

My attempt to cheer him up was at least somewhat successful. Out the corner of my eye I noticed him smile. 'That wasn't me,' he said, not for the first time.

'Yeah, sure… By the way, hiding it on top of the lockers. Genius.'

We pushed the doors to the hub open, and I walked away from him towards the detector. I drummed my hands on the back of Elaine's swivel chair and leant in. 'What've you got?'

'Anomaly,' she responded. 'It seems extremely temperamental. We've been getting bursts of interference all night but never for long enough to get any proper readings. Looks like we've finally got a good signal.'

'Where is it?'

'British museum.'

'Oh,' I returned as I straightened up, 'Connor's gonna love this.'

'Where we going?'

At the sound of Nick's voice calling across the hub, I spun around. There was a man standing beside him, dressed in black BDU's, his hands clasped behind his back and his chest puffed out.

I didn't know where he'd come from. I didn't think I'd ever seen him around here before, but, while I made a habit of talking to the scientists here, I rarely recalled any of the soldiers by name.

Still, there was something familiar about him.

There was an air, an aura, that surrounded him, a something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I barely let my gaze linger before I looked to Nick.

'British museum,' I yelled back, 'want to call Connor?' I made my way back towards him, passing by my workstation and almost stopping to grab another file that caught my attention when I suddenly remembered I'd been looking for that too, but I knew I didn't have time so kept going.

I stopped in front of them.

He was tall. He towered over me.

I smiled curtly, just as Nick pulled out his phone and pressed his speed dial for Connor's number. 'Anna,' he said quickly- phone already against his ear- and gestured to the soldier, 'this is Captain Becker. He's joined the team.'

I turned my head from Nick to the captain. His eyes were already on me. He flashed a quick smile before he swallowed and cleared his throat. 'I saw you through the window,' he said.

The strangeness of the statement made me pull my head back and blink at him. 'Err…?'

His eyes widened, 'no,' he quickly corrected, 'I meant… up there.' He pointed back over his shoulder to my medical lab overlooking the hub, a couple of floors above us.

'Well…' I responded slowly, already sinking through the weirdness he'd inadvertently forced into the meeting. 'I work here… so…'

'Yeah– I thought…' His cheeks started to turn a brighter shade of pink. 'I j-just… yeah… you must do.'

I frowned. It was too weird for me. 'I'm gonna go now.' As I turned my head I saw Jensen striding down the ramp and towards us, so I called out for him. 'Jensen!'

He quickly found me with his gaze and flashed his warmest smile. I made my way towards him, joining him as he beelined towards the exit.

'What's up with that guy?' I asked, trying to shake the strangeness off me.

'Who, Captain Buttstick?' He returned. 'No idea.'

'What's he doing here?'

Jensen looked down at me. 'You didn't read the memo?' I never read the memos. Nick told me about important things most of the time -when he remembered- and other stuff travelled like gossip. My expression said it all. Jensen leant in towards me and gave me a straight-lipped smile. 'No more Stephens,' he said lowly.

I heard Connor's voice and frantic footsteps echoing through the empty hallway of the British museum long before he came into sight.

He stopped, out of breath and sort of dishevelled behind us in the Great Court, a tranq gun swinging from his finger. I winced.

'Connor Temple,' Nick started, 'this is Captain Becker.' Becker nodded at him, and Connor gave a polite smile in return. 'He's here to protect us, so do whatever he says… unless I think he's wrong.'

Connor looked to me in amusement, and I had to bite my lip to stop any noises coming out my mouth. I gestured down to the P.H.D in my hand and nodded my head back over my shoulder. 'This way.'

Nick moved first, Jensen fell into step behind him at the front of the group, whilst I waited for Connor to catch up to me. 'A new guy?' he hissed in a whisper. I guessed he hadn't read the memo either.

'Hmm,' I agreed. 'He struts,' I informed him.

'He struts?' Connor repeated, face bright with laughter. I shushed him quickly and grabbed him to pull him with me after the others. Becker was behind us. He eyed me when I glanced over my shoulder at him, but he didn't speak and instead just cleared his throat. Connor giggled. 'Is he serious?'

I had to shush him again. We moved through the doorway into the Egyptology section.

'You know,' Connor started again, louder now, so that even the guys at the front of the group could hear him, 'when I was a kid I used to think all the exhibits came to life at night.'

'That doesn't surprise me,' Jensen replied.

'When I was about 8, I decided to stay behind one night and find out. Do you remember, A? You must have been, what? 4?'

My brow furrowed with sudden realisation. 'Oh, god,' I said, 'yeah I do. To be honest I barely realised you were gone, but I remember my mum went absolutely crazy when we lost you. It was, like, the first time she'd brought us all into the city since your mum and dad had died. She didn't stop crying; she thought you'd been kidnapped.'

'What happened?' Jensen asked.

'Well, nothing really,' Connor answered, 'except I got locked in a toilet for 3 hours. It's not funny,' Connor continued as he heard the guys laughing, 'by the time they found me I was hysterical. I've had a bit of a problem with museums ever since.'

'Shouldn't you have a problem with toilets?' Jensen asked.

'He got over that,' I replied. I looked down at the detector and increased my pace a little to get to the front of the group, to lead the way to where we needed to turn off. 'Eventually.'

'That's way too much information.'

I made it to Nick's side, pointing explanatorily around an adjacent corner, and followed him around it. All of a sudden he stopped, I stumbled and crashed into his back. 'Oh, sorry,' I apologised quickly under my breath. He reached back behind him and around me to steady me. 'What?' Nick took a step to the side and I rounded the display cabinet.

There was a body on the floor.

I instinctively moved towards it, dropping down and feeling for a pulse. I sighed. 'No. She's dead,' I said reverently. 'It's an animal kill. These are teeth marks.' I pointed to the curving linear line circling right around the woman's neck, and the sections around it where the skin had been peeled back to the muscle. 'Probably went straight for her head. Hasn't finished the job though, so maybe it isn't hungry.'

'You think there could be another body?' Nick completed understandingly.

'Maybe,' I nodded, 'looks like foxhunting. Body doesn't look like it's been dragged; her shoes are still close, so she was probably killed here too.'

'How long?'

I couldn't say. But she wasn't completely cold. 'An hour, maybe less. It could be anywhere in the museum by now.'

'Well not anywhere,' Connor said, 'it probably won't bother with the modern art.'

'Connor,' Nick said.

'Just saying.'

'Thank you. Right, we're gonna have to split up.'

Connor frowned. 'So that it can pick us off one by one?' he returned. 'No thanks. Not this time. Have you ever seen a horror movie?'

'The chances that the creature's gonna just find you Connor, are very slim.'

Connor just quirked an eyebrow. 'Even on Scooby Doo somehow the monsters always find Shaggy and Scooby first.'

He gestured between the two of us. I cocked my head. 'Am I Shaggy or Scooby in this equation?' I asked.

'No offence Anna, but you're totally a Daphne,' Jensen interposed, 'you're always the one that ends up getting kidnapped.'

I stood up. 'Does that make you Velma?'

'Alright hey,' Nick interrupted, 'not now. Connor, you and Jensen go with the captain's men, I want you to circle through Ancient Greek. The captain will stay with me and Anna, we'll take ancient Rome through to the stone age, we'll meet you back here at the Egyptian sculpture.'

'Okay.'

'Connor.' Nick stepped forward and plonked a hand down on his shoulder. 'You're gonna be fine.'

I felt the captain shifting behind me, he held out a pistol but having been distracted I hadn't been expecting to see a weapon being dangled in my face when I turned around towards him ready to set off. And I flinched, jolting backwards into a display case that immediately started to rattle as a plate fell down from a stand inside it, and a sharp noise came from my lips.

Nick was immediately beside me. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' he asked.

The captain glanced at me in confusion. 'Sorry,' he said cautiously, 'I didn't…'

I waved a hand but had to take a deep breath to find some air before I could speak. 'It's fine,' I said.

But in defence of the look in Nick's eye, the captain continued, 'if we're hunting something in here that's already killed, why are you unarmed?'

'Honestly,' I said again, calmly, as I pushed myself off the glass, 'it's okay.'

Nick gave the captain one long up and down glance, before he turned away.

The captain looked to me. 'What was that…'

'You should probably… read my file…'