The government keeps them around for three more months, anxiously waiting for another anomaly to open but nothing happens. To keep from getting bored Connor and Jess create an identity for Emily in the modern world. They make her a history graduate with a specialisation in Victorian times and joke about marrying her to Matt but don't actually do it.

They will have to face that their lives will be normal from now on.

He and Abby get married. Not in the same hotel as Jenny although Emily jokingly suggests it but they get Lester to hold the ceremony for them. And for one day everything is perfect. Connor cries when Abby kisses him and Becker hugs them even more closely than when they returned from the past.

Lester hugs him as well.

Maybe that should have clued him in.

But for now he doesn't take his eyes off Abby for one single moment, listens to Emily and Jess laugh and Becker banter with Lester and Matt.

They spend a long weekend in Brighton for their honeymoon. Long days in bed and sunshine throughout it.

A week after they return, Becker tells them that's being promoted to Major.

"Congrat-"Jess starts but Becker holds up a hand to silence her.

"And they're sending me back to Afghanistan."

Stone cold silence falls over the room until Jess hastily excuses herself and Connor looks up to meet Lester's eyes and sees that he has known it for a while.

"So, who's going to protect us from the dino's then?" He tries to keep his voice light. Next to him Abby stares into thin air, silent and unmoving as if she's been shut down.

"No one", Lester answers, "the ARC will be disbanded by the end of the month."

"But-"Connor starts without knowing how to finish.

Becker leaves first, of course, with some half-hearted promises to stay in touch when they all know that the next time they might hear from him it could be his funeral.

Jess is taken by the Navy and moves away without being able to tell them where.

Lester finally becomes ambassador, not in Moscow but Amsterdam but Connor knows he's still secretly pleased.

Connor is given a computer and a team and the task to improve security. He enjoys it, the challenge, being in charge of something and he likes his team even if they're not Abby and Becker, Lester, Jess, Jenny, Ryan, Cutter and Stephen.

Abby is put in charge of the remaining creatures in a special menagerie and comes home a little more broken each time one of them dies. Connor doesn't know how to help her, how to give her hope so he just holds her close and hopes it's enough.

Emily and Matt are let go but they stay in London, for now at least. Matt surrounds himself with plants and vastness but Connor can tell that Emily's restless where Matt seems content.

Over the next year they split up and no one is surprised. Emily stays with them for a while and takes care of Abby, finds the right words where Connor fails when the last creature dies.

It's Rex.

After two months Abby goes back to her old job in the zoo back then when they first met and starts to smile again. Connor's glad.

Jess calls sometimes and even Lester visits once but no word from Becker. Jess tells him in confidence that she once hacked his file but that it hasn't been updated since Becker came to join the ARC.

It's as if he's ceased to exist.

Connor doesn't tell Abby and tries not to let it get to him. Lester assures him that Becker is still alive but that what he's doing is dangerous and highly classified.

He's lying, Connor can see it but doesn't call him on it. If Becker was dead Lester would tell them so whatever it is he's not telling them has to be important.

Emily leaves to travel and writes them postcards from all over the world.

It's been 27 months since the ARC was disbanded when Connor sees Becker again. He's standing idly in broad daylight when Connor spots him. His hair is longer and there are scars on his face as if a big animal scratched him. He wears a suit which looks weird to Connor who has never seen Becker in anything but uniform and flannel shirts but then he has never seen Becker smoking either but he's doing it now while talking to another man, also dressed in a suit.

"Becker! Hey, Becker!" Connor shouts and waves as he runs towards him. Becker doesn't even look at him until Connor's standing right in front of him.

"Do I know you?" He asks coolly. The man he's with raises his eyebrows at Becker and Becker tilts his head slightly as if to say "Go on, I'll deal with this."

"Becker, it's me, Connor."

"I don't know any Connors", Becker tells him and blows the smoke from his cigarette in Connor's face. "You must have gotten the wrong man."

Connor watches him leave with an open mouth.

"Did you know Becker had a twin brother?" He asks Abby that evening.

"No, why?"

"I thought I ran into him today but it wasn't him."

"Becker would have told us if he had been back."

"Yeah, he would have, wouldn't he?" But Connor remembers Lester lying to them and begins to doubt.

He calls Jess about Becker.

"Does he have a brother?" He asks her straightaway.

"No, no siblings at all, why?" He can tell her what he can't tell Abby, not when Abby's happiness is so fragile that everything seems to threaten to tear it apart and Connor cannot deal with that happening a second time.

"Maybe you were wrong" Jess says but she sounds doubtful but when she calls him back she only says, "his whole file is gone. It's as if he never existed." And Connor knows something's very, very wrong.

He goes back to the street where he met Becker as often as he can until he sees him again. This time Becker wears casual clothes and a sports bag and Connor follows him.

Follows him onto a rooftop without Becker noticing him and there he sees Becker killing a man in cold blood.

"Yeah, boss, I got him", Becker says over his phone, pressed between cheek and shoulder while he packs his weapon away. "No problems at all." He rolls his eyes. "Did I ever? That wasn't meant as an invitation." He laughs. "Crumbled right in the middle of the street, you should have seen them screaming. Yeah, I'll see you later."

It's only when he hangs up that he sees Connor staring at him in horror.

"Shit" Becker curses and runs a hand through his hair. The gesture is so much Becker that Connor feels hysterical laughter bubbling in his throat.

"You killed him", Connor shrieks.

"Shut the fuck up, Connor", Becker snaps at him, confirming for once and for all that he's who Connor always thought he was. He's pacing, taking out a cigarette and lighting it. "You didn't see anything."

"You just killed-"But Becker grabs him by the front of his shirt and pushes him up against the wall.

"No, you don't understand me. You didn't see anything!" He hisses, "For Abby's sake I'm letting you go. But if you tell anyone about this or if I see you again I will kill you. Do you understand that?"

Connor nods numbly.

"Good", Becker lets go of him and Connor, unable to stand, just slides down the wall.

"What happened to you?" He asks quietly.

Becker shrugs. "I was bored." He flicks the ashes of his cigarette in Connor's direction. "Go, before I change my mind."

Connor scrambles away as quickly as he can, convinced that this is all a nightmare and he will wake up any second now.

He doesn't.

Thankfully Abby isn't there when he makes it home, trembling and half out of his mind.

Late, he asks Jess to come down for a couple days to keep Abby company while he's away for a few days. He tells her it's for work.

It's his first time in Amsterdam but Connor pays it no attention. He finds Lester in his home, surrounded by his wife and children but Lester takes one look at him and hustles him into his office.

"When were you going to tell me that Becker has gone psycho?" He yells as soon as they're alone. "is that why you deleted his file? How long were you going to pretend that he's still in Afghanistan? Would there have been a fake funeral at one point, too?"

"You don't understand Connor", Lester starts.

"Damn right I don't" Connor snaps.

"-but Captain Becker per se has never actually existed." Of all the things Lester could have said, this is the least thing Connor expected.

"What are you telling me? That I imagined him? Did I imagine the ARC, too? And the anomalies? Am I crazy, is that what you're trying to say?"

"Of course not", Lester tells him harshly, finally losing his patience. "The man you know as Captain Becker is actually called Sebastian Moran. He is…was an important asset for the military, showing a high adaptability which was why he was transferred to the ARC. The name change was necessary to maintain the secrecy of the ARC from certain branches of the military like Christine Johnson's", Lester paused shortly. "You noticed Becker's favour of guns and killing the creatures instead of sending them back?"

Connor nodded.

"In Afghanistan he became, let's say, bored. That's when he made the acquaintance of James Moriarty. The name won't tell you anything but Moriarty was able to catch Becker's interest and he left the army."

"He's killing people!" Connor said, unable to belief what Lester had told him.

"I know"; Lester said, "and there are people who take care of that but at the moment there are higher things at stake."

"Higher-didn't you hear me? I saw him kill someone and he laughed about it with—with his boss, this Moriarty you told me about." Connor sputters.

"Connor, you need to forget this conversation ever happened. And if you run into Becker again I'd suggest that you do everything possible to stay out of his way. You have to think about Abby."

"What if I don't want to let it go?" Connor challenges but Lester's slowly shaking his head as if to say "don't, just, don't" and it tells Connor that he won't like the consequences if he doesn't forget.

On the flight back he dreams about Becker killing him with that same unaffected look he had when he killed that man from the rooftop.

Connor doesn't mention any of this to either Abby or Jess. When Jess asks him, quietly, privately about his suspicions he lies to her about being wrong.

He's being promoted and he and Abby start talking about having a baby.

Emily writes from China, from Peru, from Greenland.

Jess gets transferred to another position and another until she gets fed up with it, quits and joins Emily in Tasmania.

Matt marries and they all come together again for the wedding although Connor avoids Lester as much as he reasonably can.

Captain Hilary Becker officially dies five months after that. They're reunited once more at the funeral that Connor knows is for an empty casket.

One morning Connor gets the newspaper and finds the face of the man he saw Becker with on that day splashed all over the front page.

James Moriarty who just committed the heist of the century and let himself be caught.

He uses his security clearance for his job to attend the trial which is a farce in every sense of the word. James Moriarty is nothing special, at least as far as Connor can see it. A criminal, yes, a genius, yes but Connor doesn't see why Becker would throw away his life for him.

"Bored", a voice in his head whispers. It sounds like Becker and Lester at once. "He was bored."

Becker never shows up and no one gets killed but Moriarty is set free.

When Abby tells him that she's pregnant, Connor starts to see Becker from the corner of his eye all the time but when he turns he's never there.

Then the newspaper brings the story of Sherlock Holmes and Rich Brooke and the big fraud set up around Moriarty and Connor wonders where Becker comes into this.

Lester dies in a car accident in Amsterdam a mere week later.

Jess and Emily are buried alive by an avalanche in Nepal.

Matt and his family fall victim to food-poisoning.

Connor finds excuse after excuse to keep Abby in the flat and since she's not feeling well most of the time because of the pregnancy, she does. The sudden deaths of their friends carry the threat of depression with it but Connor would rather deal with that than with Becker on the loose.

He wonders if he ever knew this man at all.

One night he comes home and the lights are on but Abby's not answering the door.

He finds her sitting in the armchair in the living room, eyes wide open and her throat split like a grotesque charade of a mouth.

"Abby", Connor whimpers, kneeling down next to her, shaking her shoulders as if to wake her up. He hides his face in her blood-soaked clothes, sobbing so much he can barely breathe but that doesn't ease the pain.

"How quaint", a voice says from the door to the kitchen. Not Becker but the other man, James Moriarty or Rich Brooke or however he calls himself. He looks bored, cleaning his fingernails with a dagger.

"You-"Seized by a sudden fury Connor lunged at Moriarty but an elbow hits him heavily on the back and makes him go down.

"Don't embarrass yourself, Connor", Becker takes his stand next to Moriarty. Connor can see that there's blood on the sleeves of his suit.

"Why?" He cries.

"I told you not to follow me again", Becker tells him as if it should be obvious.

"I didn't-", Connor begins but then remembers the trial. He feels sick, throws up over the floor.

Moriarty makes a disgusted noise.

"But, we're your friends", it's desperate and Connor knows it.

Becker looks bored. "You brought this onto them, Connor. I tried to warn you but you didn't listen. You never knew when to leave something alone, did you?"

"Darling", Moriarty all put presses himself up against Becker, "let's kill him and go. I've got something better in mind", his voice drops and he runs his hands over Becker's chest suggestively.

"Fine", Becker shrugs and pulls the trigger.