My muse seems to like where this is going since it actually decided to help me out with this new chapter :D I just have to say that this story will make A LOT more sense if you read Much Need Escape first since this is part 2 of that story. The overall story was originally supposed to be a Jecker fic (trust me there will be Jecker and Conby and Memily in this since it's hard not to :D) but my various muses got carried away and thought they'd like to try their hand at writing Sci-Fi :D

The light bulb turned on in my head when I was reading stuff about Kaleidoscopes and how turning the little beads around changed what you see. So I guess if you think about it, one slight twist can change what the future looks like :D :D :D And since we're dealing with time-travel and paradoxes and all that, PLEEEEEEEEASE tell me if you guys find loopholes in this story 'cause I will most definitely end up leaving some and I think I might have already :D

Oh and I thought Connor needed to grow up a bit and show some balls so VOILA :D This also had very mild swearing :P

:D Don't own anything except the plot, my OCs and any settings I create in the future :D

Enjoy :D :D :D

Connor sat out on the balcony bent over the damaged PDA system intent on bringing it back to life after finding it sitting next to the rubbish bin while the ARC soldiers put the trashed hotel room back in order. Beside him, Becker sat glaring at the cracked screen with various wires in his hands. No one had talked to him directly. Not since he pinned a terrified soldier up against the wall for picking up one of Jess' discarded tops off the carpet.

It was Connor, surprisingly enough, that managed to calm the Captain down by getting him to help fix the PDA and Jess' broken comm piece outside in the fresh air.

"Green wire..." Connor said quietly.

Becker handed it over and watched him attach it to the device, carefully soldering them in place. His voice was low and raw with emotion when he spoke "I could have prevented this... It's my fault she's gone."

Connor paused, glancing up at him over the top of his safety glasses. Becker's tortured gaze was locked on his hands, his shoulders slumped forward in defeat. It reminded him of the pain he'd gone through when he'd lost Abby to the Mer-Creatures, back when all of this was only beginning. They too had been fighting, making matters worse when she was pulled from the boat.

"It could have happened to anyone." he said quietly, returning back to the device in front of him.

"Why did they have to take Jess though?"

Connor frowned. "She's the Field Coordinator. Our eyes and ears out in the field. She's our rock. Without her we'd just be..." Connor paused, feeling tears well up in the corners of his eyes. Jess was friends with everyone. She made them who they were. Her energetic personality and fast reflexes kept them all alert and prepared. Connor sat back against his chair and stared down at the technical equipment in front of him. "She's knows everything about us." he whispered.

Becker glanced up at him and frowned. "But they're after the anomaly prototype, surely kidnapping you would have been the better option!"

Connor laughed. "Good to know you have my back mate."

Becker stared at him, no traces of humor present on his face. "If it came down between saving you or Jess, I will always choose her."

Connor's eyes narrowed, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips. "Then you'd jump through an anomaly and save me too because the guilt would have started eating you alive, yeah?"

Becker rolled his eyes.

"We'll get her back soon. Apparently Sarah knows who took her." Connor leaned forward and continued piecing back together the broken PDA.

Becker frowned. "The girl who came here with Matt? How would she know?"

Connor shrugged. "She already knew about the ARC and what we do. Matt's actually having a chat with her right now."

Just then one of the soldiers stepped out onto the balcony. "Captain Becker. Mr Temple. There's, uh, personal garmets that belong to Miss Parker in here. Should we, uh..."

Becker's hand tensed into a fist, squashing the wires hard against his palm.

Connor sighed. "Get Emily or Abby to put her clothes away."

Becker watched the soldier disappear back into the room. He ran his hands through his hair and sighed in frustration as he stood. "That it's! I can't just sit around. I have to do something-"

"Becker sit back down" Connor ordered sternly, never taking his eyes off of the wires he was connecting to each other.

Becker stopped and stared at him blankly. "Temple, You know me! I have to get her back!"

"You're not in the right mind set to do anything right now. You need to calm down."

"Screw you Temple!" Becker snapped suddenly. Connor jumped, glad that he had turned off the soldering torch as Becker slammed his fists down onto the table. "You do not have the right to tell me what to do! Jess is gone, probably hurt and it's my fault! You all keep saying it's not, but it is! I made her stay in the room alone! I'm the one that couldn't handle having her with us in the field. I'm suppose to be protecting you all! But what do I have to show for that? So far Nick's been murdered, Sarah's died, Danny's missing, you and Abby got lost in the Cretaceous, we just had to rescue Matt and now Jess has been kidnapped!"

Connor leaned back against his chair, watching Becker let off the steam that had been building over the past couple of years. He knew he should be terrified of him right now, but as he watched his face grow hot with anger and pain, he couldn't help but feel sorry for him. They all knew the pain he was going through. They'd lost good people going into this job. It was enough to drive any sane man insane.

"It's all my fault."

He'd had enough. Connor stood abruptly, glaring at the younger man. "Sit down and shut up!" he growled.

Becker glared at him.

Connor returned the glare. He was tired of hearing Becker repeat himself like a broken record. He was tired of being the weakest of the guys. He stood up straighter and narrowed his eyes. "Captain Hilary Becker! Sit. Down. Now!"

Becker's glare disappeared instantly, replaced with shock at the mention of his first name. "How did you-"

"Sit!" Connor growled.

With a sigh of defeat, he complied, surprised at the tone of athority and maturity the geek had gained over the past couple of hours.

"Now you listen to me Becker! We know Jess has been taken but it is not your fault! You need to stop blaming yourself when things go wrong! We need the old Becker right now! The one that's not afraid to face T-Rexes, Megopterans and Future Predators. The one that brings back his soldiers alive and uninjured. Not this... "it's all my fault" shit! You're a Captain for gods sake! Get a grip and show them a leader!"

Becker stared at Connor, wide-eyed and speechless.

"Sorry to interrupt again..." they both turned to see the soldier poking his head around the glass sliding door. "Miss Maitland and Miss Merchant would like to speak to you both."

Connor frowned. "They don't need permission to come outside. And it's Mrs Temple!" He called back as the soldier disappeared back into the room.

A few minutes later the girls slipped out onto the balcony and sat down beside the boys with notepads sitting on the table in front of them.

"What's up?" Connor asked casually, sitting back down and packing away his equipment.

The girls looked between the two men then back at each other and sighed.

"We had a couple of witnesses see what happened." Abby replied. She glanced down at the notes scribbled down on her piece of paper and added "One said that they saw two large identical men in dark grey uniforms bust the door open while a tall brunette lady wearing three-quarter length khaki pants and a thin blue jumper went inside. Another saw them drag-"

Connor held up his hand to stop her, his gaze flickering towards Becker. His face was stone-cold and emotionless. His eyes almost black with anger and his hands were clenched into unbearably tight fists on his lap. "I think we get the idea Abs."

She followed his gaze. "Sorry."

Becker leaned forward with his elbows on the table and frowned. The girls were both surprised to hear his voice calm and controlled. "Okay. We have a small idea of who took her, and what they want in exchange for her but where would they take her?"

They all looked at each other with disappointment clouding their faces. They had no idea where to start.

Connor sighed. "I'm going to go check on Matt." he looked pointedly at Becker and grinned. "Cutter told me what your name was when you started working at the ARC. At least you've never been mistaken for a building in archaeology."

Becker raised an eyebrow as he disappeared into the room. Glancing at the girls' amused faces he couldn't help a small smile himself.

~.~

"Alright. Start explaining."

Sarah watched as Matt paced back and forth across the carpet in front of her. Beside her, Charlie was occupying herself with a game on Matt's phone. She sighed, running her hand through her hair in frustration. "I wouldn't know where to start, to be honest! It's all a bit blurry."

Matt paused and turned towards the girls. "Start with why you're here."

Sarah closed her eyes and tried to think back. She remembered a glowing bright light, an anomaly, and Charlie crying out for her as she disappeared through it. She sighed, shaking off the memory. Beginning she thought start at the beginning. "Amy has this supposedly 'Grand Idea' that she wouldn't tell anyone about. All we know is that it revolves around... this." she reached for a diamond-shaped golden crystal dangling from a thin chain around her neck. The crystal looked like it had been cut verticallly down the middle, separating it from a second piece. "She can't do anything without both halves."

Sarah lifted the chain up and over her head and passed it to Matt for him to examine more closely. He frowned. "This... Sarah is this what I think it is?"

She nodded. "It's a Crystal Map. Well, one half of it." She turned to Charlie and smiled sweetly down at her. "Charlie can I please see your necklace for a couple of minutes?"

The little girl shook her head, her hand raising to the crystal hidden beneath her shirt. "Mommy said to only let Daddy have the crystal."

"Well then can Daddy please see your necklace?"

Charlie looked up at Matt, her eyes sparkling at she smiled at him.

His eyes widened when she slipped the golden chain up over her head and held the crystal out towards him. He knelt down in front of the couch they were sitting on and glanced up at Sarah as he took the second half of the crystal. "She's my... how is that possible?"

Sarah frowned. "You know how babies are made, right?"

Matt rolled his eyes and she laughed. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

"Can't you figure out who her mother is?"

"I'm not invisitable! I can still heard you" Charlie mumbled.

"I know you're not sweetheart. Daddy's just a little confused at the moment. I'm trying to help him understand."

Matt gasped, standing back up and taking a good couple of steps back. "She... she looks like Emily! That... How... What time are you from exactly?" he asked her suspiciously.

She grinned. "That's something I definitely can't share with you. Now back to the crystals. You need to gently press the two pieces together."

He looked down at the two crystals in his hands and frowned. "You're telling me this is a map to the anomalies? All anomalies?"

Sarah nodded. "Past, Present, Future. Since you stopped the Prospero Anomaly, you changed everyone's future. It was like we'd woken up from a never ending dream. You're future self doesn't exist in my time though. That's the only thing I don't understand."

"I have to go back..." he muttered quietly.

Sarah frowned as Charlie curled herself up next her. "I want to go home." she mumbled through a yawn.

"I know sweetheart, we'll go home soon." Sarah wrapped her arm around her, watching Matt gaze down at the crystals. "What would you be returning to? As far as we know, your reality doesn't exist anymore."

Matt looked up to find Charlie asleep in Sarah's lap now, while she gently stroked her thick brown ringlets. He sighed "If I place these together, it just shows the map, right? It doesn't open a random anomaly?"

Sarah looked up at him and frowned. "It shouldn't. I've only seen it in action once before and only a map was projected."

Matt nodded, glancing back down at the crystals. He could feel a magnetic-like pull between them the closer they got to each other. Their entire existence just shouldn't be possible. He had read the ARC's old reports on a similar piece of technology, the Artifact, which Helen used to map out the anomalies she needed to get to site 333. That technology didn't exist in his world though.

The crystal seemed to act of their own accord in his palm, snapping together with a quiet clink. Matt frowned, looking up at Sarah expectantly. "Nothing happened."

She slowly begun to smile, her eyes watching the crystal begin to glow in his palm. He gasped as the projection shot out and circled around him. Streams of golden light looped around, over and under him in a never ending stream. He laughed.

"Hey Matt, we were wondering if–" Connor paused, his eyes widening at the glowing sight before him.

Behind him, the others stood with mirrored expressions, their eyes also wide.

Connor stepped forward slowly, watching the stream continued to loop around itself. "This... I can't believe..." his eyes zoomed in on the small crystal in Matt's hand. He grinned. "You been keeping secrets from us again?"

"More or less." Matt replied with a grin, splitting apart the two crystals and watching the map fade away instantly.

*covers eyes* Here's some virtual cookies! Don't worry Jess will be saved and they'll all have their little fluffy moments :D :D :D

Please review! I need your honest opinions on this :D :D :D :D