Here and There

On the 18th June, 2005, Becker's ten year old sister stepped through an anomaly which then closed, trapping her in a distant past. Six years later, neither have forgotten the other, but will they ever see each other again?

CLIPPER
26th November, sometime in the mid-Cretaceous
18th June, 2005

Crack!

The girl froze, wide eyes flashing from side to side, searching for the tell-tale glow of reptilian eyes in the dark.

Finding none, she returned her gaze to the fire, glaring at the branch that had popped in the heat.

It was somewhat hypnotic; the flickering glow, the slow dance of the flames through the blackened kindling. She found herself drawn deeper into the heart of the fire, finally relaxing after a day of constant fear and danger.

Her eyes drifted to the freshly cauterized wound on her lower leg. She sighed, resisting the urge to rub the throbbing gash. She had been surprised earlier that day. The Raptors had come out of nowhere; she'd had mere seconds to grab her most important possessions and scramble up the nearest tree. Luckily, most of her things were in her bag; her blanket, dried food and strike-fire. Her knives were tied to her belt, as always. All she had to grab was the battered wind-up radio her brother had given her for her eighth birthday. It was old, yes, but had never been more useful.

Her brother. She sighed again. She remembered the day she'd last seen him as clearly as anything.

He was just back from that military academy. She had hauled their mother out of bed to drive to the station at the crack of dawn. They had stood, shivering slightly, on the platform as other families joined them, waiting anxiously for the train to roll in.

When it finally did she scanned the rushing windows, desperately searching for one familiar face. It wasn't until everyone was climbing off that she spotted him.

His once-messy hair was neat and controlled and he had adopted the chin-up, shoulders-back posture that was all she remembered of their father. He looked different but she didn't care.

'HIL!'

The shrill scream had echoed through the rapidly filling platform and many people turned towards the sound. Many jumped out of the way of the ten year old girl haring towards a young man who had abruptly dropped his bags and opened his arms to receive her.

His face had lit up as she hurtled into him, not even bothering to slow down as she threw her arms around his neck. He lifted her off her feet and span her in a circle, laughing into her hair as she buried her face in his neck.

'Hey Clip. You miss me?'

Not trusting herself to speak through the sudden flood of tears, Clipper could only nod, hugging him harder.

His arms tightened around her before, realising she wouldn't be letting go anytime soon, gently shifting her round to his back and crouching to retrieve his fallen bags.

The two of them wove through the station with Clipper clinging like a limpet to Hilary's back, chin resting on his shoulder while she regaled him with story after story about how the dog escaped the day before, how she'd been taking food to a vixen with a litter of cubs in an alley three miles away and how Mum got drunk again the other night.

She missed the concerned frown forming on her brother's face.

Clipper winced, her foot twinging again. She shifted it carefully as she checked the old watch on her wrist. She knew the time and date didn't count for much here but it was just a couple of small things that kept her sane. Date: 25th November (roughly). Time: 11:47pm (more or less).

Reaching out, Clipper gingerly tapped the red-tinged blade she had left to cool away from the fire.

The lead Raptor had seized her foot in his powerful jaws, nearly yanking her to the ground. A solid heel-to-the-eye had been enough to break his grip but the damage had been done. Blood was pouring from her ankle and the scent had driven the reptiles insane; trying to leap up the tree to get her. Clipper had limped higher, crudely wrapping the injury with a frayed piece of fabric, before fleeing through the branches until pain and exhaustion had forced her into this cave where she built a fire, heated one of her knives and, gritting her teeth through a mouthful of material torn from her bag, cauterized the wound.

The knife was almost back to normal temperature, although she had no idea how she was going to remove the blood now burnt onto her favourite blade.

The weapon was roughly six inches long. It was razor sharp, made from flint shards, bound and coated in clay then melted together in the fire before being glued to the hilt with pine resin. It had been the first weapon she'd made and, despite her utter inexperience in making knives, was the most beautiful of her now considerable collection. Over the last five-and-a-half years she had made four knives; a skinning knife, serrated knife, regular knife and a machete. Two axes also joined the armoury; one for chopping and one for throwing.

All were a soft blue at the edges, darkening to almost black on the spine. The hilts were made from sturdy redwood or bone and they hung from her belt in sheaths of genuine dinosaur leather.

The knives were one thing Clipper doubted she could have survived this long without; she took great care of them. Other things, however, weren't so well off.

Her combat boots had long ago been recycled as she grew from a size two to whatever she was now. She went barefoot; the soles of her feet becoming tough and leathery. Her clothes had been a greater problem; she had grown around a foot since she had arrived and filled out in other areas. The day came when, come hell or high water, she could not get the damn things on. Despite the fact that she was the only human on the planet and all the other creatures around her really didn't care what she wore, dignity would not let her go without. Clipper was now, therefore, clad in a crude t-shirt and shorts roughly cut from a dead Raptor's hide, clumsily stitched together using a sharp bone needle and threads of her recycled laces.

She smirked slightly as she thought about how she must look. Sat in a cave by a fire, covered in random scars, hair untamed but chopped short and eyes wild, reflecting the flames. She must look, as Hil would say, like she'd escaped from the circus.

There had been an argument that night. Hil had uncovered their Mum's 'secret' vodka horde and gone through the roof. Clipper had hidden in her room and listened to the chaos unfolding downstairs.

She sat behind her door, tears streaming down her face, as her brother raged. He was furious; yelling about the state of the house, the sheer amount of alcohol and her. Mostly her.

'She's old enough to be a bit more independent!' Mum argued weakly.

'Independent? She's skin and bone! She's been wandering the city while you sit here getting pissed! She's ten, she's not a bloody adult!'

'You haven't been here for a year, what the hell do you know?'

'You haven't been here since Dad died; you never had the slightest bit of interest in Clipper, I raised her! What the hell possessed me to trust her to you while I went to Sandhurst?'

'Well if you think you can do a better job then take her with you.' Clipper's breath caught in her throat. Would he? Could he take her with him?

'Trust me, I would. But I can't. I'm being deployed to Iraq in three weeks. Do you care? Do you give a damn that your only son is willingly flying into a warzone? Do you care that your only daughter slowly turning feral? I don't think you do. All you can see is your own selfish grief. Yes, Dad died, but now you're killing us too.'

It was too much. A choked sob escaped Clipper's throat as she pulled her backpack over her shoulders. It contained her radio, silver blanket and food for the foxes. Tightening the straps; she hared down the stairs and through the door, interrupting the argument.

Clipper sprinted through the city, towards the fox den. Tears flew from the corners of her eyes. She had never felt so lost; Hil was leaving again and might not return. Her Mum didn't want her.

Footsteps pounded behind her; she recognised Hil's fluid, even gait, heard him calling her, begging her to stop, to slow down. She sped up, weaving through the labyrinthine alleys that made up central London.

She shot round a corner and skidded to a halt.

Hovering in front of her was a golden orb, shattered glass floating around a central, glowing point. The gentle pulsing caught her imagination, hypnotising her. Almost without noticing, she moved closer, and closer again.

There was a gentle noise coming from it; distant hums and roars.

Shouting behind her. She glanced back.

'Clip? Clipper!'

Hil was coming. He would take her back, back to the house where she wasn't wanted. She had only had him, and he was leaving. He might not come home.

Her gaze returned to the orb. The pulsing was more pronounced now. She stepped forward, then again. Very slowly, she walked through.

It was impossible.

She was stood in a forest. Huge trees reached for the sky and strange birds soared overhead. Really strange birds. Without feathers. They looked more like bats.

No. No, they couldn't be.

She span on one heel, eyes widening as she saw the orb. It was pulsing violently now and a dull horror gripped Clipper's stomach. Wherever she was now, Hilary was on the other side. She screamed.

'HIL!'

Then it was gone, as silently as it had appeared, and Hil was nowhere in sight.

She was trapped, alone and more scared than she had ever been in her life.

Clipper hummed softly to herself, missing her brother, missing him so badly it hurt.

Another bolt of pain shot through her foot and she flinched, accidently kicking the fire. She hissed at the new burn as her old watch beeped and lit up.

26th November, 03:00.

She was sixteen.

Happy Birthday, Clipper.

BECKER
26th November 2010
18th June 2005

'Happy Birthday, Clipper' Becker thought as his watch beeped at him. He scrubbed rogue tears from his eyes under the pretext of wiping rainwater from his face.

She would have been sixteen today. They would have sat on the bed this morning, opening cards and sharing a box of Maltesers, like they always had done. They would have been laughing and teasing each other. She would have gone to school while he went to work and she'd have come back laden with presents from her friends. They would have gone out for a meal, eaten too much and collapsed, groaning, into their respective beds, far-too-full, at midnight.

Instead he was stood beside a barren train line at three in the morning, cold, achy, sodden and hungry; waiting for this damned anomaly to just close already!

He shifted to the other foot, then back again, readjusting his grip on the grey shotgun that was nothing like his old one; the one he'd given to Danny, Connor and Abby. Three other people he'd lost to the wrong time because he made the wrong decision or turned right instead of left or hadn't run fast enough.

She was fast. She always had been, hence the nickname, but for crying out loud; she was fast. He couldn't catch her, no matter how hard he tried. She knew this place like the back of her hand and he didn't. Not anymore.

'CLIPPER!' He yelled, desperate. She whipped round a corner ahead; he raced in pursuit, grabbing the lamppost for speed.

Then he staggered to a halt, eyes widening.

Two alleys branched off; which one was it? He bolted down the right hand one.

Where was she? He couldn't hear her feet, thudding against the pavement. He swore. Doubling back, he ran instead down the left alley, still yelling her name.

'Clip? Clipper!'

There, ahead of him, was a strange light. A glowing orb, surrounded by what looked like shattered glass. He didn't know what it was, but instinct and a terrible certainty told him his sister was on the other side.

It was pulsing violently; he redoubled his speed, he was nearly there, so close...

The alley went dark.

He barely felt the impact of running into the garage door, just the empty thudding in his chest, she's gone, she's gone, she's gone.

He curled up on the floor, shock reducing his body to stifled sobs and uncontrollable shaking.

The police found him there, hours later, and he was taken to hospital where a gash through his left eyebrow was stitched. He hadn't noticed it.

The police had searched the city high and low for Clipper and appeals for information of her whereabouts were televised on the News, but they didn't find her.

Becker knew they wouldn't.

First Clipper, then Danny, Connor and Abby. Tears burned the back of his eyes again; he tried to rub away the evidence before it had a chance to show but he caught Matt giving him a concerned glance. He glared back.

Finally, blessedly, the locked anomaly vanished. Immediately, he threw the gun through the open window of his truck. He shouted instructions to his men before yanking open the door.

'I'm going home, Matt; I'll sort the paperwork later.' Ignoring Matt's raised eyebrows; he whipped the car around and sped towards the road.

He tried to make it look like he wasn't running away.

Becker's flat was very predictable in most ways. His walls were neutral cream, one painted a dark dove grey, his floors were laminate and his huge leather sofa was jet black and well worn. His kitchen was modern but small and his bed was far bigger than it had any need to be.

Less predictably, one wall in his lounge was covered in photographs. They were a timeline of his life. Towards the right of the collage were pictures of the old ARC team. There was him playing with Sid and Nancy, sneakily taken on Connor's phone. He, Connor, Abby, Danny and Sarah, covered in muck and blood after chasing Jack into the future. The whole team, laughing and joking; Abby was shoving a smirking Connor, Danny was doing bunny-ears to Sarah, unaware that Becker was doing the same to him.

The far left was Becker's pre-Clipper childhood. Himself as a three year old, sat on his Dad's shoulders. He played Joseph in the school nativity one year; there he was, stuck to the wall dressed in a red dressing gown and a tea-towel, big, cheesy grin aimed at the camera.

Then there was Clipper. Hundreds of photos of him and his sister. One of his favourites was of ten-year-old Becker holding newborn Clipper. His dark hair was messy and hung in his eyes; his grin was big and goofy. She had only just been born but her eyes were open and staring straight into the camera. Her fair hair was fine and downy, so pale it was almost invisible on the old photo. Their Dad's spidery handwriting adorned the back.

Hilary and Bryn, 26th November 1994

The best part of his life was immortalised on this wall; the pair of them opening presents at Christmas then asleep together on the sofa after eating far too much. Dressed to the nines at each other's birthday parties, paper hats lopsided, and a manic look in their eyes from too much sugar.

Those were the days; they were happy, childish, ignorant of their turbulent future.

Becker's fingers traced Clipper's face. She was eight; stood on Brighton beach with a brown donkey. Her right hand was buried in the spiky mane, left resting on the long nose. Light brown hair was pulled into a ponytail beneath a navy sailing cap and she was lightly tanned from the unexpected sun.

Becker smiled; it was taken a few months before he went to Sandhurst. The two of them had booked into a hotel next to the beach for a long weekend. She had donkey rides while he held (and ate some of) her icecream. They had built a sand sculpture of a dragon in a cave, about a metre and a half tall and twice as long, hours spent labouring over their masterpiece until it was perfect in every detail. They sat on the sea wall, eating fish and chips, occasionally throwing them at nosy seagulls. The birds hadn't seemed to mind.

The sun was starting to rise over the Thames, light reflecting in the water; setting the river on fire, as Becker dropped, exhausted, into bed.

CLIPPER
10th August, sometime in the mid-Cretaceous

Wake.

Eat.

Drink.

Leave.

Fish.

Run.

Tree.

Rest.

Raptor!

Hide.

Bleed.

Fix.

Walk.

Walk.

Walk.

Lake.

Bathe.

Eat.

Drink.

Sleep.

Start again tomorrow.

BECKER
10th August, 2011

Becker cursed as his hand cramped, dropping his pen and shaking it vigorously. He rubbed the throbbing muscles, glaring pointlessly at the day's report, sat half-finished in front of him. His fingers were stained with stinking black ink from the cracked biro and a slashed bicep was refusing to stop weeping through the bandage. The past ten hours had been a riot of paperwork, two anomalies, a furious stegosaurus and, rather ridiculously, a confused medieval king with an unfortunate habit of not looking before he stabbed, which resulted in more than one injury and the aforementioned slashed bicep.

In a nutshell, the day had not gone well.

It was now nearing ten at night; he was hungry, tired and fed up of paperwork.

Shoving the report into the drawer, Becker stood up and headed for the Ops room to tell Jess to go home again.

She was staring at a still from a CCTV tape. It was bad quality; pixelated almost beyond comprehension from this distance, but he thought he could see an anomaly on the left of the screen.

Becker frowned; it couldn't be doing Jess' tired eyes any good.

Silent as ever, he approached the ADD, still trying to make sense of that picture.

Suddenly, his heart clenched and he had to grab the chair to stay on his feet. His eyes were glued to the image on the right-hand screen.

It was Clipper.

It was Clipper, about to go through the anomaly.

It was the worst day of his life; his deepest secret.

And Jess had seen it.

Right on cue, Jess glanced back at him, jumping slightly. He couldn't take his eyes off his sister.

'Her name was Clipper.' His voice was hoarse; he could hear every lifetime he'd aged since that day.

'She was my sister. She's the reason I started here. The reason I carried on after everything that happened. She's the reason for pretty much everything I do.'

She always had been, ever since she was born.

Jess looked back at the screen with a thoughtful expression. She didn't say anything and he didn't expect her to; nobody ever knew what to say. It hadn't taken long for him to stop telling people; Clipper had become his secret.

Without another word he turned and left, caught up in his memories once again.

CLIPPER
2nd September, mid-Permian

Clipper had spent a lot of time in trees over the last six years but, really, this was bordering on ridiculous.

There she was, minding her own business, when an orb-gateway-thing had opened mere metres away. She had immediately grabbed her bag and slipped through.

At first she had gone through them when they appeared because she thought they would take her home. They never had; now she only crossed from one world to the next out of habit, and a faint, nagging hope at the back of her mind. She had long ago given up being disappointed upon seeing yet another forest or desert.

She was sure these worlds had names, but she had her own. There was 'The One with the Raptors'; the world she had spent the most time, around three years in total. 'The One with the Giant Bugs' was particularly hated due to the incredible heat and strange air that made her too crazy to sleep. She had spent around three months there when she was fourteen. 'The One with the Bat-Birds' had been the first, and she had been returned several times. There were several types of Bat-Birds; tiny ones that lived on the giant dinosaurs and attacked if you had blood on you, right up to huge ones with red crests that only ate lizards but didn't like egg-thieves.

But far and away the worst were 'The Ones where everything is dead.' These were two worlds; one with rusty cars and ruined buildings, the other with desert and rocks and storms. Both were stalked by greyish creatures that moved like lightening and made strange clicking sounds, hunting you no matter how well you hid.

She had never seen humans, although she had very occasionally heard shouts from just out of sight. However, whenever she arrived, there was no-one there. Just a rusted car or a dead Raptor.

And now she was here. Stuck up a tree after three months in a place she had never been before.

She glanced down at the strange creature below her. Short and squat, with legs sticking out the sides, by far its most impressive feature was the huge sail on its back.

Clipper frowned; she knew she had seen a picture of it in a book, years ago, but she had no idea what it was called. She wasn't even sure if it was friend or foe but, given the size of the teeth, she was willing to bet the latter.

Her stomach gurgled and she huffed in frustration, leaning back against the trunk.

Pulling the last scrap of dried Raptor meat from her bag, Clipper was settling for another long night when her radio went off. She glanced up.

A golden glow was filtering through the trees.

BECKER
3rd September, 2011

'Two hours, Jess! I have had two hours sleep!' Becker groaned into his phone as he rolled out of bed, landing on his feet with a muffled thump.

Eyes barely open, he began rooting through the bomb site that was his bedroom, looking for his clothes.

'Sorry. I wouldn't have called you out but the anomaly is refusing to lock. Connor, Abby and Matt are already down there; they said to get you up as a last resort. I'm keeping an eye on them; there's a CCTV camera. Connor said they're doing it the old-fashioned way and waiting for it to close on its own. Apparently they haven't done that since the British museum.'

'My first day. Pristichampus ran riot through London and Connor got himself a bad luck curse. Sarah didn't tell him she made it up for weeks.' He finally dug his boot out from under the bed and yanked it on. 'Okay, tell the others I'm on my way.'

It was five o'clock; not the worst time he'd been called out for an anomaly but he had spent the majority of the night chasing an Allosaurus through Knightsbridge. The sun was barely up, just a weak sliver of light casting long shadows through the streets.

The anomaly was in a square, thankfully deserted, near Hyde Park. Two ARC cars were parked off to the side. The team was sat on the bed, talking quietly with EMDs at the ready.

'I was going to sleep in, you know.' Becker announced mock-cheerfully as he slammed the door shut. 'Lester told me I didn't have to come in 'till twelve but never mind; I'll sleep another time.'

Matt wordlessly handed him a flask. Becker took it with a nod. Coffee; hot, black and, by the smell of it, extremely strong. He took a few gulps and felt himself waking up.

'Jess said it wasn't locking. Any known reason?'

Connor shook his head. 'No idea. It's not the locking devices; we tried three different ones. I was wondering if Philip's anomaly could have changed them slightly but they're still on the same frequency. Could just be a one-off; I'll look at the data later. Until then, we sit it out.'

Becker sighed, hoisting himself up next to Abby. 'Where does it lead, at least?'

'Around two hundred and seventy million years ago; slap bang in the mid-Permian. Biggest threat to come through would be a Dimetrodon.'

He was about to reply when Jess' voice came through the comms.

'Something's coming through!'

The four on them leapt off the car, powering up their guns just as a dark shape burst through the anomaly. But it wasn't a Dimetrodon.

It was a girl.

Connor dropped his EMD in surprise; Becker froze, unable to take his eyes off the girl, now staring around at her surroundings. Brown hair hung almost to her shoulders, dropping in front of blue-grey eyes. She was lithe and wild-looking, her stance that of one which doesn't know if it is hunter or prey.

'Becker...?' Jess whispered in his ear, 'Is that...?'

The girl's gaze met his.

'Clipper.' Her name slipped past his lips and he discerned a vague clatter as his EMD hit the ground next to Connor's.

He took a few shaky steps, then he was running, faster than ever before and she was running, and he caught himself thinking "This is it. Any second now I'm going to wake up."

Clipper threw herself into his arms, not bothering to slow down, and suddenly she was hugging him as fiercely as he hugged her. He swung her in a circle, like he had so many years ago, laughing as the tears streamed down his face.

Confused murmurings and questions from the team, along with a loud, joyful whoop from Jess, rang through his comms. He ignored them, holding his sister closer.

Becker buried his face in Clipper's shoulder, her well-loved voice in his ear, unheard for six years.

'Hey, Hil. You miss me?'

FIN

The ending of this story was hung until yesterday morning, when I picked up my GCSE results. Had it not gone well, Clipper would probably still be stuck in the Permian and I don't even want to consider what could have happened to Becker. Anyway, it's all good! I got the grades I needed, had a banana split for lunch and Clipper got home more-or-less unscathed. Yay!

A WORD ABOUT CLIPPER

Clipper was ten when she went through the anomaly. As her birthday is late November, that means she was about to finish Year 5 in Primary School.

Clipper doesn't know the names of different eras, or most of the dinosaurs that live in them. Obviously, she knows Raptors, and would have recognised T-Rex and all the others we're told about as kids. Anyway, this is what she means when she makes up her own names for things.

The One with the Bat-Birds – Jurassic
The One with the Raptors – Cretaceous
The One with the Giant Bugs - Carboniferous
The Ones where Everything is Dead -
Rusty Cars and Ruined Buildings – Where the team rescued Jack from in S03E08
Rocks, Deserts and Storms – Matt's time

I'll be doing some more Clipper one-shots, please review and tell me what you think :)