#I’m so sorry this is hart erasure I know

[nobrain-onlysteven]

have you seen them? now you have

[theegyptologistanomaly]

Time in the Palm of My Hand.

Becker/Jess Nick Cutter/Claudia Brown

Becker/Sarah Connor Temple/Abby Maitland

Helen Cutter/Crazy Danny Quinn/Jenny Lewis

Stephen Hart/Babysitting (they don’t really mix) Julie Brown— Oc (original character) Helen’s Clones

Part I. Time and Space

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She’s seen enough to know that this incursion into the anomaly can only end one way, badly. Though she doesn’t doubt Stephen’s handiness with a gun, nor Becker’s for that matter, but she’s seen this type of thing all too well, before. There’s a scar over her left knee to prove that. She isn’t looking for another.

She’d been there so long, the fact that nobody knew she was there, and wouldn’t probably know for some time, staggered her resolve, while a cloud passed over the bright sunlight streaming through the multicolored leaves of multiple different species of tree, in Epping Forest, hastening her spirits downwards into the category of downright miserable.

Oh no... she was screwed. The thought suddenly dawned on her, that if whatever it was below the tree, didn’t kill her, she just knew Stephen and Cutter probably would... the look on Stephen’s face the last time she’d put herself in harms way, still haunted her, for like a second, and then she got over it. She wished he would.

Time was ticking away, as her watch, loosely dangling around her wrist, confirmed with a harsh mechanical noise. She’d since tried contacting Stephen, from her mobile phone, but to no avail. It was mocking her with low to no bars.

Stephen would be calling her an idiot by now, and not in the fond joking way he usually did, his adopted sister knowingly trying his patience or making some blunder that could rival any of Connor’s worst mistakes.

He was fond of her, and had been like a big brother to Julie, since her biological sister’s disappearance... more like erasure from history, and from the world, and the only people who knew about that were Nick Cutter and herself, oh — right, and Helen. That —

The melodic yet annoying ring of the walkie was startling to her, and Julie suddenly rummaged, hastily, and with the added trouble of perching high in a tree, with a tactile bag dangling some branches beside her, she hopefully grasped the walkie, and switched it to broadcast, knowing the sound would attract more of — whatever Connor had said they were — she sadly hadn’t been listening at that point.

“Where the hell are you!?” Came Stephen’s disgruntled voice over the monitor, sending Julie rolling her eyes, feeling suddenly like she was three years old and being scolded for something “Catching up on some last minute shopping, why?” was what came out, in a relatively calm yet snarky manner, instead of the things she’d actually meant to say, moreover an apology for worrying him, for running away to join the team in the field. She could almost hear him laugh, almost.

There was a loud snarl from one of the creatures, something she knew Stephen just had to have picked up on through the walkie, she recalled he had excellent hearing anyway.

“Juliana Rebecca May Brown,” Julie rolled her eyes, she’d had enough parenting to last a lifetime, couldn’t Stephen just act like the cool older brother she’d never had? Well, she’d had an older brother, he just wasn’t cool.

It’d just been Claudia, Roger, and the baby of the well off family, Julie. Always had. She didn’t know what had happened to their parents, and it’d been just them, three against the world, for as long as she could remember, till — Julie stopped, forcing her wandering mind back to the pack of carnivores below, and the voice in the military grade walkie “I know, I know, I really did it this time.” she muttered, absentmindedly poking at a small cut on her forearm “I’m sorry, okay?” This time, she actually meant it.

She thought she heard another voice over the line, a very Becker-esque voice, muttering tiredly about ‘babysitters’ and something about ‘messing up his job’ because, he was pretty sure babysitting was not in the job description, but here he was, watching Stephen James Hart drag him into his failed job as ‘babysitter,’ to Claudia Brown’s baby sister, who just happened to put herself in danger every half second. He thought it was enough that they had to shepherd dinosaurs and god knows what else, through the anomalies, now he had to find a missing person? She thought she heard Stephen sigh as he explained something to the military minded man.

She scoffed at the word ‘babysit,’ she hadn’t needed babysitting since she’d been a wide eyed five year old. She couldn’t quite make out what Stephen had just said, but there was an affirmative of some sort from Becker. She couldn’t help but smile, it was just something about Stephen acting as her overly protective older brother, that made her so annoyed, but also very happy, because, apart from Claudia, the rest of her family and most other people, had ignored her.

Finally, Stephen spoke again, hesitation suddenly sparking in his voice “Alright, Jules, Connor’s got you on tracker, just sit tight and we’ll be there soon.” Hardly comforting, though she hardly expected much if any comfort at the moment, knowing Stephen wasn’t happy with her, neither would any of the others. Wait, when had they put a tracker on her?

She made an attempt at a thank you, but her breath caught in her throat, watching the Daedon scrabble at the bark of the tall evergreen as it failed to shake her from the tree’s branches.

A sharp rustling below, met her ears, and the Daedons turned from the tree to the noise, running off in a panicked way when a single bullet fired, then was met by a following shot, and Julie breathed a sigh of relief, as she crawled tentatively down a few branches and called into the dark, voice quavering a little too much to just brush aside the fact that she’d actually been scared. She was now safe though, and maybe she could make something up on the spot to ease Stephen and the other’s anger or displeasure at her, maybe she’d even get Stephen to take them to Mac’s Burger Shack, after everything. She hadn’t thought about it till now, but she was close to starving, and Mac’s Burgers, made by a John instead of a Mac, were the best, though maybe they could also settle on a trip to the pub and some greasy fish and chips wrapped in yesteryear’s newspaper. She pulled her thoughts away from food, and back to the present, waiting a tick before climbing down.

Her face broke into a relieved smile and she took a breath “Stephen, that was quick,” she felt her feet touch ground, feeling a wave of reassurance and a rush of pain in one of her ankles as she looked around for the others, her lips turning down in a hesitant frown when there was only silence that greeted her. Her eyes widened in a panic.

“Stephen?... Connor?... Abby?... Becker?” There was a minute before she heard movement again, and a voice that was clearly not Stephen’s say “Stephen isn’t here, neither are the others.” and the figure of Helen Cutter moved out from the tall wild underbrush, studying Julie’s appearance.

“Well there are definitely similarities, but you could pass off as Stephen’s sister as well, if you tried enough,” was said as Helen advanced down the hill slightly and looked back at the younger woman, with an air of ‘well, are you coming?’

Julie hesitated before glancing around her surroundings, finally having to admit to herself the thing she hadn’t, hours before, she was well and completely lost. Reluctantly she followed Helen, stomping through underbrush and old growth, suddenly realizing that this place was anything but Epping Forest, England, the different flora told her as much, as she trudged on after Helen Cutter.

She mulled over a few nastier comments stored in her head, but settled on “You killed Nick,” she clambered over a low log, covered over by a moss species that had long died out since the Miocene Era “You killed Nick, and Christine Johnson, because of you, Sarah died, you got Stephen killed, you almost killed Connor and Abby, and Danny, you blew up the ARC, and you — you erased my sister clean off the map, so why should I trust you right now?” Her voice came out acidic, with a twinge of pain, maybe they’d been able to make amends in the past, get Nick and then Stephen back, but it still pained her to think of those separate days, two years apart, when she’d heard that the two people she cared about most, had been killed, she remembered Lester and his rigid posture, his suit and pocket square, telling her the truth after she’d asked where Stephen was.

There was a blaze of pain in front of her eyes at the memory, another equally painful memory surfacing, the day they’d told her — Cutter had told her, that Claudia was gone. She almost missed Helen’s reply in the onslaught of her memories.

“Nick isn’t the problem, Helen, you are,” was said with a fire she didn’t really feel at the moment, bruised and tired as she was, with her ankle smarting something terrible, trapped in the, she drew a breath through her constricting lungs, the Miocene.

Well, at least the air was somewhat breathable, not like the stuff in the Archean Eon, where all life was bacterial and oxygen compounds were found only in water. She was counting herself lucky, she hadn’t run into that anomaly or she’d probably be dead, or worse.

She drearily followed Helen, wishing she’d have just stayed in the tree... she’d rather take the Daedons over Helen, any day. At least she’d know what to expect with the ‘Hell Pigs.’

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Stephen was pacing circles and straight lines on the forest floor. Not half an hour ago, he’d dropped Julie off at the flat, only to have her show up with Connor and Abby at the anomaly site, her eyes hunting around eagerly, in a way he knew all too well from his experience, and it was in times like those, when he wondered if they weren’t somehow related in one way or the other.

Cutter was sitting a few feet away, buried behind a map of past anomaly sites, Connor plunking down beside him, while Abby and Becker did a quick perimeter search, and Danny was roasting some sort of Thylacosmilus, over a small fire. Stephen shot the ex-cop a pointed look, to which Danny only shrugged “We’ve got to eat some time right? Besides mate, it’s better than Velociraptor.” He gruffed out, voice like smooth gravel, while Stephen returned to pacing, and Connor and Abby both agreed with Danny on the subject of Raptor as a meal.

It wasn’t until Becker returned with a dirt covered silver necklace with a mood ring heart charm on it, having found it some yards away in the dirt, that he really started worrying.

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Hours, they’d been going around for hours it seemed, the sky dipping into dawn as the low wind swept through the trees.

Julie listened to Helen prattle on about the dangers of the human race, and why she was doing what she did, this and that, till Julie could not help but roll her eyes and try to tune Helen Cutter out, the woman was more off her rocker than anyone else knew, but Julie couldn’t help herself also thinking that Helen had a few good points mixed up in the just downright crazy.

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Stephen had no trouble telling Connor Temple what he thought, when the computer savvy male had advocated, as did Matt, to go back to the ARC and regroup later on, with the words ‘she’s like a sister to me too, mate, but we’ve got no leads, and there’s no way we’ll find her in this darkness.’ At a look from Cutter, though, Stephen held back against a flood of accusations about Connor and the rest just wanting to, give up.

Sure she was like a lot of the team’s little sister, Becker had said as much at a point of confidence between the rest, and would later deny it, saying instead that Julie was just a ‘damned nuisance.’ Sure the other’s all thought her part of the weird little family the ARC team had made throughout the hard years, but —

Just as if Nick could read his mind, a hand settled gently on Stephen’s shoulder, gripping reassuringly, and said in his deep Scottish brogue “I know you’re concerned, Stephen, worried for her, but I need you to know that you aren’t alone in that... for all of Becker’s carrying on about how much of a nuisance Julie is, he’s rather fond of her, we all are, and we won’t give up on her, none of us are saying that, we just need to get our bearings, we’ve been searching for hours, the tracker Becker found didn’t give any leads but a dead one,” Nick eyed the younger man with a sad yet reassuring look, giving his shoulder one last squeeze before he let go “She can’t have gotten far Stephen, we’ll find her.” And reluctantly Stephen nodded, eyes shuttering down over his emotions, he trusted Nick, and just hoped that the professor was right. The alternative was —

He found his thoughts interrupted by the leg of the roasted Thylacosmilus, shoved in front of his face, Danny waiting for him to take the food offered. If you could really call it food. Stephen took it, not really hungry, but knowing that you didn’t argue with Danny Quinn, besides, Stephen was too tired to fight about it, so he took the cooked meat while Danny got some for everyone else, smiling as he said with a look in his eyes “just like chicken.”

By that point, Stephen was pretty sure Quinn was joking, but, like so much with Danny Quinn, he couldn’t actually be sure if Danny was enjoying it or trying to make a bad experience into something good. And what was that about Raptors?

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By the time Helen and Julie had reached the anomaly, pursued by a rabid pack of Percrocuta, ancient Hyaena like carnivores, Julie was pretty sure she was never going to see her friends again.

No Becker being the straight laced military man, that she could somehow coax a smile or laugh out of, no more Connor being — well, Connor. No staying up talking way into the night about the differences between Star Wars and Star Trek, arguing over the many other avenues that Captain Kirk could have taken to rid the Enterprise of the trouble with the tribbles. No Abby, teaching her how to fight or telling her everything she knew about reptiles, being there when Julie needed to talk about something Stephen had done that annoyed her. No Danny and his knowledge about the world, making her laugh with his dry humor. No Matt and Emily, with their odd knowledge and fascination for the world, Matt with a guiding hand or gentle quip, and Emily with her levelheaded stance and her caring nature. No Jess, with her friendly personality, the way she’d adopted Julie as a sister. No Cutter, being the closest person she’d had to a father figure in her life. No Jenny with her oddly Claudia like personality, no Stephen.

She was just coming to that conclusion, when she saw him up ahead as she was roughly dragged through the anomaly into the future, where Stephen was standing back a ways, looking blank as can be, and he didn’t even react when Julie latched her arms around him in a hug. The Nick Cutter beside him looked just as blank. Not so much a flicker of his eyes, as if he were waiting for — Julie pulled back quickly, as if stung by the idea, and that’s when Julie knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, but before she could voice her thoughts, Helen directed her towards an abandoned building, welcoming her to — the future.

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Stephen was alone, in more than one sense of the word, and he only had himself to blame, he thought dismally, crumpled jacket tossed on as if he had no care, Connor and Abby some feet away, wrapped up in each other’s arms as they drifted to sleep, sleep that would not come to Stephen.

He stood up, turning to the gentle conversation from Jenny Lewis and Danny, Matt and Emily, Becker was somewhere off to the side, talking in his headset to, Stephen could only guess, Jess Parker. Nick was still hung up on some Claudia Brown woman that only he and Julie remembered.

Happy couples, while he was completely alone, and it was no fault but his and Helen’s.

He’d been a young undergrad, just trying for his Thesis paper, when Helen had approached him.

He took a deep breath and a somewhat bitter sip from his canteen, sloshing the water down, and trying to avoid the dregs of dirt from the river water he’d filled his canteen with.

Now with the disappearance of Julie, and with the realization that Helen had in fact cheated death yet another time, the tiny bit of Stephen that had felt finally content and safe, that was finally healed, had been taken from him with the surfacing of those realizations, and all his scars had opened again, and all the hate for Helen, and the hate for himself, hidden skin deep, had been brought to the surface again.

Sitting there, beating himself up over past wrongs, he thought it couldn’t get any worse, but in the back of his mind, he knew better.

The world had a way of making things fascinatingly hard.

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Numb pain was the first thing that greeted Julie when she awoke to Helen placing a finger to her lips, nodding her head stiffly towards a large Future Predator crawling on the ceiling above. And when it found her thudding heartbeat, pounding a failing rhythm against her rib cage, she hardly could manage a scream before the inevitable happened.

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Stephen was pacing again, and he wasn’t so sure he liked it when Connor made mention of it, because, maybe Connor didn’t do it, but for Stephen, the pacing was therapeutic, he’d always been able to make his best decisions while moving. He found it usually helped with keeping his temper, as well, today though, was different.

“I bloody well know that Connor, thank you, I guessed that the rest of the world needs to know that as well then?” He hadn’t meant the harsh cutting sound in his voice or the way his eyes narrowed, but it happened anyway, and he found himself clamping down on his lower lip, focusing on cleaning the EMD he was currently loading, coaching the shake in his hands to cease. He’d been completely torn apart by the way things had changed since he’d been miraculously saved from death, well, his past. He was now equally gutted by the turn of events, and kept his emotions firmly in check while he schooled his face into an impassive mask.

“Look, this isn’t just another rescue mission, Conn, this is — well,” he glanced over at Cutter, before looking back at Connor “This is Julie, and she’s like a sister to me, to us,” he nodded, ache in his neck, throbbing “It’s not like a normal search and rescue, this is personal,” he cocked back the trigger and flicked on the safety “And with Helen out there, we can’t take things too lightly, we can’t let her trip us up, I’m not falling for her tricks again.” He rolled his shoulders, straightening up “And it’s not just this time that I’m talking about, but this time it’s just more personal. Alright?” He gripped Connor’s shoulder, patting the computer savvy man, reassuringly, before he started moving towards the anomaly as it started closing, eyes wide with realization. If the anomaly closed —

Just as he was able to get towards the anomaly, slamming feet to the hard ground as he ran, the light vanished, leaving him lunging towards nothing, with Nick pulling him back from the spot. He hardly fought, seeing no use in it now, as he had thought before, just falling against Nick’s guiding hand, and that’s when Nick finally realized the extent of just how broken Stephen was.

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Part II will be out soon :)

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