What Once Was Lost -- 1/3

[eternalscribe]

Title: What Once Was Lost {1/3}
Author: not_from_stars // Artist: weaselett
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing(s): Taylor Craig/Becker, Abby Maitland/Stephen Hart, Jenny Lewis/Nick Cutter, Sarah Page/Connor Temple
Rating: PG-13
Challenge: For au_bigbang 2010
Warning: Spoilers for S2 and S3 and character deaths.
Word Count: 23,230
Summary: When Taylor Craig was 11 years old, two very amazing men saved her life from a place that she didn't understand. Sixteen years later, she presented herself to the head of the ARC, James Lester, only be told that both men had died shortly after their rescue of her. After doing some investigations through anomalies on her own, Taylor comes to realize that the world changed in too many ways since then and all of what was wrong would need to be rectified -- but she was also positive that only her two heroes could help them with that. So with her own determination and drive -- and the wordless support of Lester -- Taylor sets on a course to change time and bring the men back to where they belong.
Author's Notes: I want to say thank you to my awesome beta readers, havocthecat and enochiansigils and my very awesome artist, weaselett. Thank you so much, guys!





The woman’s name was Taylor Craig and when she was 11 years old the two most amazing men in the world saved her life.

It was partially her own fault that she needed rescuing, really, and she could admit to that fact sixteen years later. She had been so angry with her stepfather that when her dog ran through the sparkling tunnel she had chased after him without looking where she was going.

The monsters beneath the sand would really turn out to be the least of her problems and when she thought they had eaten her dog, she had found that they couldn't get to her if she stayed on the rocks.

Too bad the soldiers that came through the tunnel later didn't know that -- or listen to her when she tried to yell a warning at them.

She kept to the rocks and a few times managed to run to rocks that were closer to the sparkling tunnel she had chased her dog through. That was actually how she had gotten too hurt to run any more. She had barely made it to the rocks on time the last time and had sprained her ankle jumping away from the monster that was trying to eat her.

She had sat there for a while, trying to figure out how and when she was going to get back home -- not that she thought that anyone would be missing her. Her mum had died and her stepfather didn't seem to care one way or another what she was doing or up to now. She wasn't even sure if he noticed when she wasn't there.

She had never been the type to feel sorry for herself, but she was pretty close to it when she saw the two new men come through that blasted tunnel. She immediately knew that they were different than the others because they didn't look like soldiers.

Not only did they not look like soldiers, they weren't acting like the previous men had, either. In fact, when she started waving and shouting at them, they listened to what she was saying, and tried to figure out what was going on. Once they got to the safety of the rocks, she learned their names.

Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart, and they were here to rescue her and take her home.

They became her heroes -- even if she wasn't about to tell them that. In fact, she told Stephen that if he ever picked her up again without her permission she would punch him. Since he was carrying her and trying to keep her safe from the giant scorpions, she didn't know if she would have gone through with her threat or not. However, it sounded good and it made them realize that she wasn't some damsel in distress that needed men to rescue her. (Really, if she hadn't gotten hurt she would have eventually figured out a way to get past the scorpions and to the tunnel back home.) The two men got her home and after a reunion with her stepfather -- who actually did give a damn about her -- she stepped outside to ask the leaving men one question.

"When I'm out of school, can I come and work with you?"

Nick smiled and there was no hint of sarcasm in his eyes. "Yeah, all right. You'd be a pretty good asset."

Taylor kept that promise in the forefront of her mind as she went through high school and then college. She graduated early and threw herself into graduate programs. She didn't have a hard time finding out about the Anomaly Research Center and what kind of work they did. She had a few contacts in different places that she talked to from time to time, and she tried not to ask favors of too much. Favors could always come back to hurt you, but there were things that she needed to know as she plotted out her schooling and her future career plans. Her stepfather and teachers were both stunned and impressed with the single-minded determination with which she approached each step in her long term career plan.

When she was offered the job on one of the research teams at the ARC during one of her graduate studies, she accepted immediately. However, even then she didn't seek out Nick Cutter to remind him of his promise to her. She wanted to learn more, to have enough of a background of knowledge about the anomalies and what they could cause or where they could lead before she presented herself to the main ARC team.

When she finally was confident that she had learned everything that was possible in her current position, she went to James Lester to get herself put on the main team.

None of her planning or anything she had learned over the years had prepared her for the news Lester gave her.

"What do you mean that they're dead," Taylor demanded as she looked at Lester across the desk.

"Exactly what I said," Lester said, giving the appearance of someone who thinks they're dealing with inferior mentality. "Stephen Hart died not long after they rescued you from that desert and Cutter some months after that."

"They've been dead for sixteen years?" Why hadn't anyone told her?

"Approximately that, yes."

Taylor was silent for a moment as she rubbed her temple thinking about all of this new information. "So all of the work I did, all of the knowledge I've gained, it's been for nothing."

"Now that would be where you are wrong," Lester said in a tone that said he was used to people being wrong around him. "There's no reason that you can't be added to the team, even if the ones that originally invited you are long gone. I've gone over your research and your personnel file and you would be an asset to the main team."

“You still want me to come and work for you?” She stared at him. "Even without Professor Cutter and Mr. Hart?"

"Contrary to popular belief, I am the one in charge and the one who makes the decisions with what happens here," Lester said patiently. "As I said, I think you would be a good addition to the team. What's more, I know that the team needs someone like you."

"Someone like me?" Taylor was instantly suspicious.

"Yes. That would be someone who has made evolutionary biology her primary field of study for the last ten years. Someone who has studied all aspects of the anomalies and their effect on the world around them." He narrowed his eyes and to her it looked like he was trying to communicate something to her without putting it into words. "Someone like that would be invaluable, especially with someone like Helen Cutter on the loose."

"Helen Cutter? Was she related to Professor Cutter?"

"You could say that. She was his ex wife." He let those words weigh on her. "She's also the one that is responsible for the death of Stephen Hart and she shot Professor Nick Cutter."

Taylor could feel herself going cold as anger started to build within her. "She killed them?" Professor Cutter's bitch ex wife had murdered her heroes?

"She did." He was silent for a moment, but his eyes never left hers. "She killed them and all of the team mourns their loss."

Taylor clenched her hands into fists as she weighed that information. "Helen Cutter." She was never going to forget that name.

"Helen Cutter," James Lester repeated. "Even I find that the world is a much duller place without Cutter irritating me all of the time. It was tragic and a horrible mistake that she wasn't dealt with sooner and that those two intelligent men were lost."

"But they weren't --" The look in Lester's eyes made Taylor stop what she was about to say. She knew about anomalies and knew how they moved through time and how you could change the past.

Lester knew she knew that and he also knew that she would pick up what he wasn't putting into so many words.

"It upsets me to hear about their murders," she said instead, managing to keep her voice calm.

"Yes, well, such is the life that we lead," Lester said all business like again. "I take it that you will accept your new position on the team and take care of what needs to be fixed? After all, their actions have gotten rather sloppy as of late. Perhaps they are getting too old for their jobs now."

She highly doubted that, but she also knew that to vocalize the hidden messages in his words would not be a good idea.

"I'll take the job," she said firmly. "I'll make sure that things get back on track."

Lester nodded and handed her a set of keys and a thick black binder. "Welcome to the team, Miss Craig."

Over the next few weeks and months, Taylor studied the members of her new team. What she discovered made her almost as unhappy as Lester's news had.

Almost.

First, she realized that each person on the team was broken in some way. This didn't surprise her all that much, it just made her sad. After all, Cutter and Stephen had affected her on a deep level after only knowing them for a few hours. These people had worked with those men for months, maybe for years. How much more attached had they all become to their mentors? How much deeper had they been pierced by their deaths?

Second, Lester hadn't been exaggerating when he told her that they needed someone with her skills on the team. Within weeks, she was able to start making sense out of Cutters notes that Connor still hadn't been able to decipher. To Taylor, this was completely understandable and logical. Connor had once been Cutter's student and he had idolized the man, but he hadn't made Cutter's exact field his area of study and his specialty like she had. Besides, he had other logistics and technological skills that had been needed even more. Taylor's specialty was evolutionary biology -- just like Cutter's had been. She understood more in his documentation -- located all over the damn place, by the way -- than anyone else on the team had ever been able to.

Third, the intricacies of all of the relationships among the team were more layered than any serial or movie she had ever seen on television or in theatres.

Danny was doing his damnedest to do what was best for the team, but was tormented over his inability to track down Helen Cutter after all of this time. Sixteen years was a long time to be so focused on the destruction of one person, but Danny Quinn was very determined.

Abby threw her all into every case the team dealt with, but there was a shade of sadness in her eyes that just never seemed to go away. It didn't take long for her to find out that Abby had been in love with Stephen Hart. When Stephen died, a piece of Abby died that day as well.

Connor, well, he seemed to be in love with Abby. Maybe. The two of them were dating, but Taylor was convinced that it was because they had just fallen into that kind of pattern. They were the last two of the original team, so they were just together.

Sarah obviously carried a torch for Connor, but she didn't want to do anything about it because of his commitment to Abby. The last thing Sarah wanted to do was cause anyone more pain than they had already gone through.

Jenny, the nice woman who had explained things in a way her stepfather would accept all of those years ago, had left the team shortly after Cutter had been killed. She could understand that as even back then she could see that Jenny had feelings for Cutter.

Becker was a different sort of layer all together. He was torn up with his own guilt over not protecting Cutter better. He had been hired with one job in mind: keep Professor Nick Cutter and his team alive. He felt that he had felt in his main responsibility, and that failure had worked to shape him into a damned formidable soldier.

Because of all of this, or maybe in spite of all of this, Taylor found herself drawn to Becker even more than the others on the team. There was just something about him that pulled her to him and made her want to be at his side and wipe all of that anger and bitterness from his eyes.

Of course, when Lester told the team that she was the specialist in her field and that she was to be protected at all costs, she saw shifting interest and reactions from everyone on her team. When he told them exactly what her field of study was, she could see all of them looking at her with new eyes. Seeing these different reactions to his announcement made her realize that this team, this family, needed her help. This damn timeline needed to be repaired so that everyone involved could heal.

In the mind of Taylor Craig, there was only one way that she could accomplish this.

Well, really, two ways that could be done in conjunction with each other.

To begin with, no matter the cost to herself, or the monetary cost to the ARC, Helen Cutter needed to be punished for the deaths of Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart. By any means necessary.

Oh, and she was going to bring Nick and Stephen back from the dead while she was at it.

It wasn't hard for her to decide that she would need to bring Nick back first.

During the day, she worked on the anomalies that opened and she studied them before Connor managed to lock them down or they closed on their own. She spent nights studying photos and descriptions of what had happened the day Nick had been murdered. It got to the point where she could close her eyes and recite every detail of the scene to herself. From what she saw in those photos, there were many places in the ARC that an anomaly could open without anyone noticing it.

Driven was not a strong enough word to describe her. That's what she overheard Danny telling the team one day when they thought she was grabbing a nap in her office. She crept to the door on silent feet to listen to the conversation. She didn't know why exactly they sounded so concerned, but they did. Sarah and Abby talked in hushed voices and finally she heard Connor's voice.

"Well, why don't you just ask her, then?"

"Ask me what?"

She noted with interest that Becker was the only one who didn't look surprised to see her standing there. She'd have to file that away to think about later -- and wonder how much he knew about what she had been doing.

Connor looked like he wasn't sure what to say when she was looking at all of them so calmly from where she was leaning against the door. Finally it was Danny who broke the tense silence again.

"Why you're doing it."

"Doing what?"

"Studying everything that Cutter ever wrote down or researched," Sarah responded. "Why you lock yourself in his office --"

"It's my office, now," at least temporarily.

"--and study and reconstruct the things that he did or left unfinished."

Abby shook her head. "Even Cutter had his limits, but you don't seem to ever stop. What we don't take care of here during the day, you take home to finish at night and on weekends."

"It's not normal," Connor chimed in. "Everyone has something they love, but they also take breaks."

Becker was the only one who didn't say anything, but Taylor knew he was paying close attention to everything that was going on. She could also feel Lester watching them from the railing outside his office above them, but she didn't look at him. Instead, she looked at all of them in turn and then her eyes settled on Danny.

"Professor Nick Cutter saved my life when I was eleven years old," she said quietly. "I owe him."

"Oh, my god!" Taylor turned to look at Abby and the other woman smiled slightly. "You're the little girl, the one with the dog."

"Wait, from the place with the scorpions and that thing that we ended up chasing all over the place?" Connor looked from her to Abby and back again. Taylor knew why he did. It hadn't been long after that when Stephen was killed. "You're that little girl?"

"All kids grow up," Taylor said frostily. She hadn't thought of herself as all that little at the time. "But yes, I was that girl. Professor Cutter and Mr. Hart saved my life." She saw Abby flinch slightly at her words, and again, she felt sad for the other woman. "This is the least I can do."

"So, you're trying to finish his work in an attempt to pay him back?" Danny questioned her.

"Yes," Taylor said quietly.

Among other things.

She shouldn't have been surprised some months later when one of the team showed up outside of her office door long after everyone else had gone home. What did surprise her was that it was Becker and that he had two bags of food. She raised an eyebrow at him as he came in and kicked the door closed behind him.

"Presumptuous tonight, aren't you," she asked as she watched him setting food up on the coffee table in front of the couch in the office. The couch that she had planned on catching a quick nap on later.

"Doing my job," he replied, not looking at her as he finished setting things up.

She gave him a confused look. "Bringing food to me at --" She looked at her clock. " -- eleven o'clock at night is not part of your job description."

"Taking care of you and keeping you safe is," Becker said as he came around her desk and picked her up out of her chair.

"Hey! Put me down! Damn it, Becker, don't make me hit you."

"I have a hard face," he said as he dropped her onto the couch. "You'd probably hurt your hand more than my face."

"What the hell has gotten into you?" Taylor was glaring at him as she straightened to a more comfortable position on the couch.

"You need to eat."

She stared at him for a moment. "I do eat!"

He crossed his arms. "When?"

"What?"

"When was the last time you ate something besides vending machine garbage?"

"I ate earlier."

"Earlier, when?"

She frowned at him, really wanting to hit him. "I ate a few hours ago."

"And what did you eat?"

"I had a salad, maybe a sandwich, damn it. I don't remember exactly. What the hell business is it of yours what I eat or when?"

"The last real food you ate was at nine this morning, when you had the breakfast sandwich and coffee that Connor brought you," Becker said, his eyes darkening at her. "Since then, you have maybe managed to eat four bags of peanuts and a bag of chips, and drank several pots of coffee."

"I repeat, what business is it of yours?" Her voice has risen without her realizing it. "I don't need a babysitter, Becker!"

"Obviously you do," Becker's voice was matching hers in level. "My job is to protect you and keep you safe -- even if it means keeping you safe from yourself because you're not taking the proper care of yourself!"

"Get. Out." Her voice tone was full of ice as she glared at him.

"No," his voice softened and he settled determined eyes on her. "How are you going to help them all if you work yourself into a collapse and your body breaks down on the other side of the anomaly at a crucial point?"

That caused Taylor to falter in her anger. "W-what?" She tried to regain her composure. "I don't know what you're talking about."

He shook his head, pulling her to sit down on the couch. He handed her a fork and one of the containers of food. "It took me awhile to figure out what it was you were doing, and once I did, I realized that I should have come to that conclusion a lot sooner." He waited until she had taken a few bites of her food. "At first, I couldn't figure out why you were so focused on deciphering Professor Cutter's notes and why you kept studying that damned artifact that he gave to Cutter."

"I told you, I want to finish his work," she said, taking another bite. "I owe him for so much. I owe him my life."

"See, most people would probably have believed that story and just let it go. However, finishing his work and restructuring his charts and models wouldn't require you to continuously study the photos of his murder scene and Stephen Hart's death scene. Stephen should have nothing to do with finishing Cutter's work -- and certainly photos surrounding the scenes of where they died would have no bearing on that." His eyes dared her to deny what he was saying. "Investigating Stephen's death has nothing to do with Cutter's work."

This was Taylor, so of course she dared to challenge him on this. "Understanding everything that made up Nick Cutter's life -- including Stephen -- helps me to continue his work, and to maybe write a biography about him." She was surprised that she hadn't thought of that cover story before she was confronted by Becker and his suspicions.

"That might work with Connor, and maybe even Danny, but it won't work on me." He took a bite from his own dinner. "Sarah and Abby will figure it out, too." He shrugged.

"What exactly do you think I'm trying to do then, mister all knowing Captain Tudor Becker?" At Becker's surprised look, she smiled at him. "I have my own ways of finding out information. I can see why you never go by your first name."

"My mother was a history teacher with a passion for the classics and the monarchs. She thought Tudor would be an extremely lucky name for me."

"And has it been?" Taylor was very good at changing the subject and steering the conversations into different areas than they had previously been in.

He shrugged. "It definitely made me tough when some stupid git thought he was going to tease me about my name."

"I bet it did," she said, taking a drink from the bottle of juice he handed her. "Did you get teased a lot?"

"In primary school, a pretty fair bit. By secondary school, nobody wanted to challenge me and get hurt. They learned really quickly that teasing me about my name was a very short way to a busted lip and a really nice black eye."

"Ah, a force to be reckoned with as a child then," she said with a nod. "I can see how the kids would decide that teasing you wasn't worth the pain they'd get into. To hear my stepdad talk, I was pretty good at picking fights when I was a kid."

"Was he right? Did you pick a lot of fights?"

"Mate, I was a girl who loved science and animals more than I liked make-up and social gatherings. When most girls in school were shopping for dresses and trying to go out with the boy of their dreams on Friday or Saturday nights, I was studying the evolutionary charts of dinosaurs and humans." She shook her head. "I didn't have to pick fights. The fights picked me."

"I can see that," Becker said, looking at her. "Were you this bad at redirecting conversations when you were a kid, too, or is this something that you've gotten worse at as you have gotten older?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," she said, taking another bite of her dinner. "I'm just trying to talk to you about something other than work."

"No, you're trying to distract me from the real work you're doing by asking me about my name and how it was for me in school," he argued. "That is not going to make me forget what you're doing and wanting to know why you're doing it." He looked at her. "I'm not leaving until we talk about what you're trying to do and why you're doing it."

She sighed, putting down her food. "Why don't you tell me exactly what you think I'm trying to do, Becker?"

"You're planning on going back through the anomalies and preventing Cutter and Stephen from dying."

Taylor's jaw dropped. She realized that there was now no way for her to deny it, because she had given away the truth by her reaction. "How did you --?"

Becker took a drink from his bottle and shook his head. "It wasn't obvious at first, I'll give you that. You hid your actual plans pretty well, actually. You studied the charts and notes and said all of the right things whenever we had to investigate a sighting. Then, I started noticing things."

She really didn't like how this conversation was going. "Like what?" She took a drink, hoping that he couldn't see that her hands were shaking slightly. She had been so damn careful about everything. How had he figured it out? Not to mention, how was she going to explain this to Lester and convince him to let her continue with her work and the plan? This had all hinged on keeping it a secret from the rest of the team.

"There started being too many times where you stayed behind longer and longer. Everyone else believed you when you said you were trying to gather more information on the other side so we could compare and contrast soil samples and animals of the different anomalies that opened."

"I was doing that," she argued. She really was. It just wasn't the only thing she had been doing.

"Oh, I have no doubts about that," Becker said, giving her a warm smile. "However, I know for a fact that you were doing more than that. You're the one that started studying the makeup of the anomalies more than we had ever done before. You were taking notes and were the only one that noticed that not all of them were the same size or depth when they opened."

She shrugged. "I'm a scientist and I like a mystery. The formations of the anomaly gateways are a very good mystery for a scientist to focus on."

"That's possible. But you were also timing the anomalies we went through to see how long they stayed open."

"Connor does that."

"No, Connor works on how to lock them down as soon as possible. You've been measuring and timing them. You've also been working on that artifact."

"The team has worked on that for years. Were you suspicious of them, too?"

"For them, it's been a job. For you, it's a mission." He shook his head. "After I noticed all of that, I started paying more attention to what you were doing and the schedule you were keeping."

"You were spying on me?"

"No," he frowned at her. "I was keeping an eye on you. Helen Cutter killed Professor Cutter because he was getting too close to the truth and he wouldn't help her destroy the ARC or parts of the past. If she thinks you're getting too close to her --"

"You think she'll come after me."

"Taylor, she killed her husband. What makes you think that you would be any safer if she thought you were a threat to her and whatever insane thing she's trying to do?"

She poked at her food for a few moments without speaking as she thought about what he was saying to her. Finally she lifted her head and met his eyes. "You guys haven't seen her for sixteen years, not since she murdered Professor Cutter. Lester told me that."

"Just because we haven't seen her doesn't mean that she's not around or spying on us. That woman isn't the kind of person to not keep an eye on her enemies." He put the rest of his food down on the table. "Make no doubt about it, to Helen, we are the enemy. You, your work, and your plans make you a very definite enemy of her. If she thinks you're too much of a threat, she will come after you."

"She can't get into the ARC," Taylor reasoned. "Even if she does find out what I'm working on. She can't get to me here."

"She got in before," Becker reminded her. "She managed to get in and murder Cutter, and then disappear again. Even if she couldn't get in here, you can't stay here around the clock. She could get to you at your home, on the road, any place else you might be. You are alone outside of here and that makes you an easy target if she comes after you or sends someone after you."

Taylor sighed, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I can't live my life in fear that the insane bitch that caused so much pain and screwed things up so badly is going to come after me. More importantly to me, I cannot, will not stop my work, Becker. I can't do that, no matter what you think the risk might be."

"Tell me why, then. Explain to me why doing this is more important than your own life or safety? Because, really, I don't understand and I think I need to."

"They saved my life when I was a little girl. They didn't have to, but they risked their own lives to come in there and get me to safety when they found out I was trapped there."

"They wouldn't want you to endanger yourself like this, Taylor. I didn't know Stephen, Lester didn't hire me to protect the team until after his death, but if he was anything like Abby said, he would never want you to risk your life like you're doing. Neither one of them would agree with you endangering your own existence or the stability of this time line to rescue them from their fates."

She folded her hands together, trying to gather her thoughts enough to explain to Becker why this was so important. She needed him to understand that she wasn't just doing this for anything that felt she owed those two men so much. She needed him to understand that the death of those two men had caused too many bad things in this time line that never would have happened if they had been alive.

"It's not just because they saved my life that I need to give them back their lives," she finally said. "From what I have studied and put together from Cutter's note and models, things changed when they died."

"Yes, that tends to happen when people die."

She shook her head. "No, not like this. Things that Cutter talked about and saw in his reenactments, and made notes from the anomalies he had studying, they stopped existing when he was gone. It was the same thing with Stephen's death. It was supposed to be Helen that died then, not Stephen. Because both men died before they were supposed to, it altered this time line. Things changed and not the way they were supposed to."

"Explain."

"Jenny wasn't supposed to leave the ARC, but after Cutter died, she just couldn’t deal with the things that went on here any longer."

"She almost died, Taylor. She almost froze to death because she got trapped with some kind of killer mushroom."

"I know what happened, Becker, I've read all of the reports. However, had Cutter been here when that case came around, none of that ever would have happened."

"How do you know that?"

"I just do."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Can't you just go on a little faith here that I know what I'm talking about?"

"I need more than that, Taylor."

She frowned. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Sweetheart, since I came to work for ARC, I've pretty much been making my living off of weird or the unbelievable."

She let out a breath. "I see things."

"You see things?" His tone held no opinion that she could hear as of yet.

She nodded. "I see things. I've seen images of what this world was supposed to be like."

"You have visions. Like a psychic."

"I'm not a psychic. It's not the future I'm getting visions off. I get visions of the past... and shadows of what the present is supposed to be like. I can see scenes that should be overlapping what is happening now."

"You see these images all of the time?"

"While I've had them since I was twelve, I don't see them all of the time." She shook her head. "Hell, I would be in an asylum if it were like that all of the time. Especially because when I see the two time lines overlapping each other, I get dizzy or disoriented."

"I can imagine that you would." Becker nodded. "That puts a completely different light on all of the plans of yours."

"Oh?"

"It's now even more important that you have to be careful and protected in case Helen comes after you. She could come upon you while you're recovering from one of those visions of yours and you wouldn't have a chance in hell of protecting yourself from that bitch."

"Becker, I'm not going to stop my work, not now. Things are wrong here and the only way to fix them is to bring Professor Cutter and Stephen Hart back. We have to go back in time and rescue them before they get killed and bring them here. It will make the time lines stable out and quit fading in and out of each other." She looked at him. "We have to bring them back and not change anything from their death scenes and I have ideas how to do it."

"But you're not safe!" Becker got up and started pacing her office. "She could get to you during either one of those trips into the past. She'll come after you and then who would be around to pull off this brilliant plan for you?"

"If I have to be the sacrifice to fix all of this, then so be it. As long as I get those two men back, it won't matter what happens to me after that. Let Helen come after me and try to stop me from bringing them back. I don't care what she does to me or what she tries. Those men will come back home where they belong."

Becker made an angry sound in his throat that Taylor thought sounded like a growl. She also thought it was kind of sexy, but she wasn't about to tell him that.

"Damn you, girl, if she kills you, this team will never recover from it. You've become a part of them. You're the genius little sister that they protect at all costs because you really are family now. That's been happening while you've so wrapped up in your notes and models and plans. They care about you and you've been wrapped so far into this team and family that you're one of the hearts of it. Your work and your presence has given them more hope than they've ever had since Cutter’s death, and you bring them all together." He sighed, coming to sit down with her again. "Taylor, if this team loses someone else they care about, they will break. They'll never heal from it and this team will all end up going their separate ways. When they do that, everything that they've worked for will be abandoned."

"Then I'll make sure that doesn't happen. If Helen comes to hurt me, then I'll make damn sure that it's after we bring the other men back. What happens to me after that won't matter as much and they won't break because of me, Becker. They'll have their hearts and souls of their family back."

"Do you really think that they'll forget about you so easy? You've brought them back together and then you're going to be bringing Cutter and Stephen back from the dead. You'll have all kinds of attention from them and they'll be so grateful to you for bringing their people back." He came closer to her. "They'll care if anything happens to you."

"I'm not doing this for fame or attention to me, Becker. I'm doing it because it's the right thing to do. The others can't know because, like you said, it could be dangerous. I don't want any of them hurt."

"You're vulnerable to attack outside of the ARC."

"Those are the risks I have to take for this. You know that as well as I do."

He was quiet for a long time and Taylor grew more and more concerned as he continued to be quiet. Finally he nodded and looked at her. "Fine. If this is the way you want to do this, then we will. But, you will have one of my guys on you as guard duty at all times."

For the second time that night, he had made Taylor's jaw drop. "You can't do that. Becker, be reasonable! If I were to suddenly start going around everywhere with a guard it will arouse suspicions and it will definitely cause Helen Cutter to take a noted interest in me."

"I'll be the guard, then."

"Again, you can't be around all of the time or staying at my place because my having a guard all of a sudden will garner more attention than we need."

"Not if everyone thinks I'm your boyfriend."

Taylor blinked. "What?"

"If we were to start dating, it wouldn't look at all suspicious when I am with you all of the time outside of the ARC, it's the perfect cover story. I can be at your place and you could be at mine and no one would be the wiser. You'd be doing your work, and I'd be doing my job keeping you safe."

Taylor shook her head and then stared at him for a long moment as she processed everything he was telling her right now. It really did make sense from a logical perspective and from a tactical perspective as well, even if the suggestion pricked a little at her pride for a moment. Driven, determined scientist or not, no woman wanted someone to pretend that he was in love with her. No woman wanted someone dating her as part of a job. However, she couldn't argue with certain facts about the suggested plan.

"You have a good point," she finally admitted quietly. "And if will make it easier for you to let me do my job, then we'll do it your way."

"It wasn't as if it were really a choice, you know."

"Don't make me shoot you."

"Do you even know how to shoot?"

"No." Taylor grumbled.

"I didn't think so."

"But I can kick and bite pretty well." After all, she had once threatened to bite Stephen if he tried to pick her up again. It's even possible he had believed she would.

"I'll make sure to keep that in mind."

Her response was something pithy and Becker laughed.

The rest of the team didn't seem to be surprised when word got out about her and Becker dating. She had been worried that it would cause a ripple in the work place, but in fact, Abby and Sarah were excited about it and felt genuinely happy for them. They told her they felt that Becker deserved someone who cared about him as much as he cared about her. Taylor wasn't looking forward to what their reactions were going to be like when they found out the truth about the relationship. Would they be angry at both of them for their deception or just Taylor since she was the newest one to the group and therefore wasn't quite like family yet - no matter what Becker seemed to think?

She really wasn't looking forward to finding out the answer to that one, and hoped that maybe their happiness over why they did it would outweigh their anger at being lied to.

She hoped. Right now though, she'd focus on her research and plans and she would try not to feel bad every time one of them gave her a cheerful smile whenever Becker would hold her hand. She'd pretend that she wasn't affected by Danny and Lester's nods every time Becker would hold her close and look like he was checking her over for damage after the team had been on an especially treacherous assignment.

As they worked together and kept up their farce of a relationship, she and Becker became very close friends. Oh, she was good friends with the rest of the team, but she could talk to Becker about the things that she couldn't voice to anyone else. When she got so tired that she couldn't see straight, Becker would take her to his place so that she could get some needed sleep. When there were days that she was so wrapped up in what she was doing that she lost track of time, he was the one that made sure she'd eat something that wasn't from the vending machine.

When she voiced the worry that someone could blindside him or still catch her alone, he took her to the training field and taught her to shoot. They quickly became close friends and it made their charade a little easier to keep up.

She was pretty sure that Becker was having the same issues with lying to his friends about his feelings that she was, but he reminded her that it was for the best until her work was completed. They couldn't take a chance of anything happening to her. He wouldn't allow it.

So, for her safety and to protect the work she was doing, they'd continue with the cover that they had created. She'd pretend that everything was normal and all right with her and that she wasn't working on something that was dangerous and that could cost her life. She'd pretend that she had reasons to duck her head or smile when she and Sarah and Abby were alone having girl talk.

She'd pretend that she really didn't hate living such a lie.

Six months after their original discussion, Becker came into her office late one night. He took one look and her face and then shut her door, leaning against it. The blinds were all closed, so she knew that they wouldn't be disturbed. Any other employee that was still here this late would just assume that she and Becker had decided to have some private time in her office. She could feel him studying her and then she heard his head go back quietly against the door.

"So it's time, then?" His voice was quiet.

Taylor nodded without looking up at him. She was rubbing her temples, trying to get some relief from the tension headache that had been building all day. Becker locked her door and then came to stand behind her, his hands gently massaging her neck and shoulders.

"I found the right number sequence from the artifact examinations to go back to the exact point of time that we need to." She closed her eyes, letting herself relax a little more into his hands. "I've tested it --" She felt him tense up a little behind her, and rushed to continue. " -- in a controlled circumstance in the lab. We'll have exactly three minutes to get Professor Cutter out of there, and to convince Helen Cutter that her shot killed him.” Her voice tensed on the last sentence. “We need to figure out a way to do that or none of this will work.”

“We could replace him with the clone she created, that could convince her." He shook his head. “Three minutes. That's not much time, Taylor."

She nodded. "I know."

There was silence for a moment as he worked on the tension in her neck. "The visions are getting worse."

It wasn't a question. Since she had told him about them, he had started noticing how her eyes would change when she would see them. There would be a different kind of tension in her as she watched them happen that no one else seemed to notice but him.

"Yeah," she whispered. "They keep crossing in and out of this reality much more rapidly as it gets to closer to when we have to do something. It's hard to keep up with them sometimes."

"Do you think they'll steady out for a little bit after we get Professor Cutter back until we can work out the sequence to save Stephen?"

"I don't know. I really hope so." She sighed. "Becker."

"What's wrong?"

"If we don't make sure that Helen still believes she killed Cutter when we do this, your concern may become a fact." She had been thinking a lot about this lately.

"That you're going to become her next, main target?" She nodded. "I'm fully aware of this. What’s your point?"

"If she does come after me, things could get really damn messy and difficult. She really will want to kill me and anyone in her way of accomplishing that could be in serious danger."

"She's not going to be able to get close enough to you to harm you, Taylor," Becker said more calmly than she liked. "That's what this whole set up for the last six months has been about. She'll have to go through me and my boys in order to get to you."

Yes, that had been the original plan. However, after six months of pretending to be his girlfriend, she found that the idea of Becker getting hurt because of her really upset and scared her. She didn't want anything to happen to him.

"I have to do this tonight," she finally said, changing the subject. "It has to be done tonight if we're going to have any chance of this rescue succeeding."

"Then we'll get it done tonight."

Taylor pulled away from his hands so that she could turn her head and look up into his face. "We?"

"You really didn't think I was going to let you go through the anomaly and into that situation alone, did you?" Becker smiled down at her. "That is so not going to happen. I'm here to keep you safe and make sure that you get through this mission alive."

But who was going to make sure that Becker would get through this all of this unharmed? Taylor had come to realize that sometime in the last six months she had fallen hard for Becker and really cared for him. He was putting his life on the line for her and that scared her.

There were a lot of things that Nick Cutter had come to expect from working with the ARC for a few years. Weirdness was pretty much all part of the package. However, what he didn't expect when he went back into the building after the explosion was for a hand to reach out from the shadows and grab him.

"Over here, Professor," the young woman who had a hand on his wrist directed.

"Hello, Professor," Becker greeted him. Well, it was Becker, but an older, harder looking Becker than the man he was sure that he had just left outside.

"What the bloody hell --"

"Look," the woman interrupted him. "I know you have plenty of questions, and I promise you that we will answer them. However, right now we don't have a great deal of time."

"Who are you people?"

"Taylor. That's Becker, you know him already." Taylor was tugging off his jacket. "Becker!"

"Here!"

Taylor caught the bullet proof vest and started fighting to get it onto Nick. "We're running out of time."

"Two minutes, Taylor!"

"I know!" She turned to look at Cutter. "Long story short, Helen killed you and screwed a whole hell of a lot of things up. We came to fix what she did, but she needs to believe you're dead, still."

"Taylor!"

"I know!"

"She killed me?"

"Shot you deader than dead," Taylor confirmed. "Look, you just have to trust me. I promise we'll explain everything as soon as we're safe."

The next few moments blurred together for Cutter as he confronted Helen and just like the two people he had seen before said, she shot him. Even having the vest on, it hurt like hell and for a moment, Nick closed his eyes, trying to get his breath back.

He heard Helen running off and then felt someone pulling him up. "Let's get you on your feet, Professor. We need to get out of here."

"Taylor?"

"All set. The clone is in his place for Connor to find."

"Did you give him instructions?"

"I asked him. He wanted to help."

"Did you bring the fake artifact?"

"Of course I did! Whose project is this, anyway?"

Wisely, Becker didn't answer and the world seemed to spin for a moment.

"Damn it, the anomaly is closing. We need to get through, now, Becker!"

"I got him." Nick felt himself lifted up in the air and the person carrying him began running. "Get your ass through there, Taylor."

"You first! He's more important!"

"Damn it, Taylor that is not a request!"

"Just go, I'm right behind you."

Cutter heard Becker mutter something unflattering about women and then they were running through an anomaly he hadn't known was there. He turned his head and looking over Becker's shoulder saw that they barely made it through before it closed behind them.

It wasn't very long after that Nick Cutter was sitting on the couch in Taylor's office. She was sitting behind the desk rubbing her head and Becker was against the door. Cutter had taken a few looks around and realized that they were actually in his office, though some changes had been made.

"I'll of course be moving my stuff to the office next door and giving you your rightful office back," Taylor said quietly when she caught him looking around. "This was only temporary."

"Who are you people?" Cutter's voice was reasonably calm.

This is where it could get tricky and she looked up at Becker. "You want to go get her while I explain to the Professor what's been going on?"

"Will you be all right?"

Cutter might have stiffened in indignation if he hadn't seen how Becker was looking at the woman. It didn't take him long to realize that Becker cared about her, and it wasn't him hurting her that he was worried about.

"I'll drink some tea and that should make most of the ache ease up."

Becker nodded and then looked back at Cutter. He gave him a smile. "It's glad to have you back with us, Professor. It hasn't been the same without you."

Cutter watched Becker leave, shutting the door behind him and then he turned back to the woman behind the desk.

"My name is Taylor Craig," she said slowly. "Sixteen years ago, you and Stephen Hart went through an anomaly and saved my life."

Nick's eyes registered a little bit of surprise. "Taylor? But you were a wee thing when we rescued you."

She cracked a small smile. "Well, sixteen years can make a person grow up."

"Sixteen years? It's been sixteen years for you since then?"

Taylor nodded. "It has been, for me, and for everyone else here. You see, Professor, sixteen years ago, Helen Cutter shot and killed you after she tried to take over and destroy the ARC." She raised a hand when he looked like he was going to protest something she said. "I know you have strong feelings about messing with the past and time lines and how changing even one thing in the past can affect our future or our existence. I'm asking you to please, hear me out first. Then I'll answer all of your questions and tell you how me doing this is not messing up the time line, but repairing it." She swallowed as she looked at him. "Please?"

Cutter looked at her hard for a long time. He could see that she was sincere in what she was saying, and she didn't sound insane. She also didn't seem like she wanted to stop evolution or wipe out all of humanity in some mad quest. "What is your field of study?"

She gave him a wan smile. "Evolutionary Biology."

He nodded. "Go on." He noticed that she looked a little pale and tired. "Miss Craig --"

"Taylor, please."

"Taylor, then. Are you sure you're well?"

She nodded, rubbing her temple. "Just a bit over tired is all. Becker would be happy to tell you how I haven't been eating or sleeping right while I've been working on how to get both you and Stephen back where you belong."

He raised an eyebrow at her. "You plan to raise us both from the dead."

"Neither one of you was supposed to die, and when you did, it messed with this reality and who knows how many others." She took a deep breath. "When I was twelve years old, I started having what my stepfather called strange episodes. If he knew the truth, the poor man would have felt guilty and probably had me committed somewhere expensive." She shook her head. "Not important. Anyway, I started having what I later realized were visions."

"Visions?" There was disbelief in his tone.

"Professor Cutter, you've seen doorways that take you to all kinds of points in time and you're going to scoff at a scientist saying she has visions?"

"When you put it that way, I guess not."

She nodded. "As I was saying, I started having these visions at different points in time. At first they were really confusing and they caused headaches because I was trying to separate them."

"Separate them?"

"The visions I was seeing were like two movie films being played at the same time, but they kept superimposing themselves over each other. A few months after the first few, the visions came more frequently and with much more intensity." She met his eyes. "From looking at the records and matching up the dates, the first few visions came the night shortly after Stephen died. They increased in frequency the day after you died."

Cutter stared at her. "You're not joking, are you?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm not. I did my best for most of my life to teach myself how to deal with them so I could continue with my schooling and my work and then come work for you. It wasn't until Lester hired me for the team that I found out about your deaths. It was through your notes and that artifact that I was finally able to realize what I had been seeing for so many years. The dates coincided."

"Two parallel time lines that had diverged when they weren't supposed to," Cutter breathed.

"Exactly. It was my theory that they started fracturing when Stephen was killed, but your death caused them to separate completely. Simply put, you weren't supposed to die and your ex-wife messed with more than just your life, Professor. She endangered the time line and could have caused the reality irreparable harm."

"Could have?"

"It's not irreparable," Taylor said quietly. "You're here now and as soon as we can get Stephen back, things will start becoming normal and the splintered time lines will become joined once more."

"You sound very sure of this."

"I'm positive that this is what needs to be done."

"Then what was all of that about making sure my clone got found in my place? If this was the right thing to do, why were you two so concerned about that?"

"That was my fault, I'm afraid, Professor," Becker said, opening the door in time to hear that last question. "I was worried that if Helen didn't hear of your body being discovered, she would start looking more closely at the ARC again and that Taylor would end up in danger if Helen found out what she was doing."

"Good point. Taylor's knowledge is something that Helen would want control of, or she'd kill her if she wouldn't agree to work for her or with her."

"I'd never work for that bitch," Taylor hissed.

"It'd be a death sentence then for sure," Becker said. He looked at Taylor. "Did you explain everything to his so far?" She nodded, standing up and coming around the desk. "In that case, Professor, there is someone that you need to see." Becker opened the door. "Come on in, Jenny."

Jenny stepped into the room and when she saw Cutter, she paled slightly. "Cutter?"

By the time Taylor and Becker slipped out of the office and closed the door, Cutter was already holding onto Jenny Lewis like she was an anchor.

"You should have told us all what you were about," Danny said angrily. "We could have helped."

"No, you would have drawn more interest in what I was doing than I needed," Taylor said.

The team had all gathered in one of the conference rooms after Lester had summoned them. Taylor was standing with her back against the wall next to the window and Becker was standing next to her. Jenny was still looking a little shell-shocked, but she wasn't looking like she was letting go of Cutter’s hand any time soon. Connor couldn't stop staring and the hurt looks that Sarah and Abby kept giving her made Taylor flinch inside.

"We're a team, at least I thought we were," Danny said, his voice getting louder and starting to make Taylor's head pound.

"Why didn't you tell us, Taylor?" Abby's voice was a little gentler than Danny's was.

"The fewer people involved in this, the better," Lester stepped forward to address them all. "When I hired Ms. Craig and placed her on this team, I did so knowing exactly what she was going to do. As some of you tend to forget sometimes, I am the boss of this program. My decisions are the ones that should be heeded. Ms. Craig had no choice but to keep her project a secret from the rest of you."

"She didn't keep Becker in the dark about it," Sarah pointed out.

"It's not like she was going to keep her boyfriend from knowing what was going on," Connor said. "Couples have to share everything with each other."

"Taylor didn't tell me anything," Becker finally said, his voice having a tinge of warning in it as he looked at the rest of the team and then at Danny. "I figured it out on my own when I was watching her. Any of the clues I picked up, should have been easy for you to pick up if you had paid any attention to what was going on around you instead of being such a hard ass."

"It's my job to be a hard ass and keep the team together," Danny shot back.

"And apparently it was Taylor's job to fix what had been wrongly tampered with." That was Cutter's voice. "What she was doing placed her in enough danger and she wasn't going to risk her teammates, as well. What she was and is doing could have killed her, and she knew it."

Sarah's head whipped to look at Taylor. "You knew you were in danger?"

"I knew that doing what I was planning to do could have hurt me," she admitted. "I didn't know exactly what going back through an anomaly so close to an explosion would do to me." She swallowed. "But it was Becker who clued me in to the other danger I could be in that I never even thought of."

Danny looked at Becker. "What danger was that?"

"Helen Cutter," Becker bit out.

"Oh, yeah, if Helen knew what Taylor was working on she would have tried to kill her for sure. After all, she murdered her ex-husband." Connor said. Sarah hit him in the shoulder. "Sorry, Professor."

"Yes, well, if Helen Cutter was willing to kill the man she had been married to, nobody else would be safe from her. Ms. Craig would have been a walking target." Lester eyed Taylor. "Good thing for her that her boyfriend is head of security and weaponry."

"Yes, a good thing," Becker agreed. He looked back at Danny. "Taylor kept this all a secret to protect her team. You can't fault her for that."

"I would have done the same thing." Cutter's firm voice caused everyone in the room to turn to him. "She did exactly what I would have done in the same situation."

"What about the time lines?" Connor asked. "How does this work since you're not really dead. Is our future and present all messed up in some way?"

"No." That whisper was Taylor's. "No. We're correcting the time line. Professor Cutter wasn't supposed to die in the first place." Taylor really wanted to know why the room suddenly felt entirely too warm.

"Taylor!"

She was pretty sure that was Abby's voice yelling at her, and then she heard Sarah. Why were they yelling at her? She was trying to explain what she had done and why. She was trying to tell them why the time line wasn't in as much danger now.

She heard a curse from far away as the room started spinning on her. Maybe if she closed her eyes for a moment, everything would stay still.

She’d close her eyes just for a moment, and then she'd gather her thoughts and finish explaining to them what was going on.

Just for a moment.

Chapter 2