The Changing Face of Lester.

Here we meet Lester's wife. Continuation from 'Do you remember me?'

Lester has been bitten by a Future Predator.

Chapter 1

Lester went out to the local pub to buy all of his staff a drink. After the long and eventful day that they all had had, he felt as if everyone deserved a drink. All apart from Abby.

Abby and Connor had been going through rough patch. Connor had finally realised that Philip Burton had used him so that he could open his own anomaly. The final straw had been after Connor had succeeded in opening the first man-made anomaly and 'Killer Beetles' had come pouring through the anomaly. During which Phillip had tried to kill everything in the ARC, including ARC personnel. That had been the final straw for Connor, and so the pretence of him losing his memory had begun. Abby had been speaking to Matt who had informed her that Connor was behind everything that went wrong in the Future. She had tried to get Connor to listen to her and not to do Phillip's bidding. Connor had dismissed her concern and carried on working for Phillip, thus driving a very nasty wedge into their relationship.

Connor and Abby had recently made up, were engaged and were now telling everyone the good news that Abby was expecting a baby. Abby felt a little jealous that everyone else was drinking but she made a promise to herself that she would not touch any alcohol until after the baby was born.

Lester had a soft drink with all of them; after all he needed pain relief and still needed to drive himself home. It simply would not do if he was caught 'drink driving'. He decided to go home. He was still feeling quite tired and sore. He recalled the days' events.

He had been in a meeting with the Minister who decided that he wanted a proper run down of the goings on at the ARC.

On his return he had found that two of his men had embarked upon a suicide mission, to go to the Prospero offices and destroy the Anomaly Opening Machine that Phillip Burton had built. Connor, the brains behind everything, had even been sucked into the anomaly. Somehow he had managed to crawl out and end up at the ARC. That was strange. The fact that Connor had entered the anomaly in one place and come out another disturbed him. He decided that he would find out how but for the moment he would let it go.

Somehow some predators had entered the building and Lester had been bitten. How was he going to explain that one to his wife? She did not know anything about the Secret and Highly Confidential Organisation that he worked in. As he drove he heard a dog bark. It was almost as if a light bulb had pinged on in his brain. That's it! Bitten by a stray dog. That could just work. It would have to be a very large dog, but it could work.

The doctors had managed to patch him up, and he felt well enough to not only to drive himself home but to join his staff in a drink at the local pub. Lester groaned. He had not been prepared to pay out all that money for drinks!

Lester arrived home, exhausted, sore and tired. He paused to look around his large eight bedroom house in West Berkshire. When they had moved here over ten years ago they had loved the idea of village life. The enormous south facing garden and patio was something that his wife had really fallen in love with. It wasn't until recently that they realised that they were practically neighbours to the Middleton's. That had been a bonus. The team had been aghast when he told them that he had an invitation to the Royal Wedding. Lester like it because it didn't take that long to get into work, just over an hour wasn't bad. Some people at the Ministry had to live over eighty miles away, taking them far longer than it took Lester. The fact that he managed to get into work so quickly, especially in an emergency, had put him in the minister's good books.

"Darling I'm home" he called. "Darling? Where are you?" he called again. He looked into his garden where she would normally be relaxing after a hard day's work at the hospital. If she was out there she would definitely not hear him.

"Darling? ... Caroline?" He wondered where she could be. He wandered back to the front of the house. It was then he saw the yellow post-it note by the front door. 'Something has come up at work. Be back later.' Lester groaned again, feeling very sore. The feeling in the side returning as the painkillers wore off. He decided to have a few paracetamol and go to sleep.

A very smart woman drove up to the house. She had medium length blonde hair and blue eyes; today she wore a very flattering trouser suit in midnight blue. She walked purposely up to the house.

Lester was upstairs, changing into his pyjamas when she came in. "James, Darling where are you?"

"Up here" he called. Lester was struggling with his shirt as she came in. He winced in pain as he tried unsuccessfully to take his shirt off.

"James... Oh my goodness. How did that happen?" James' wife gasped as she saw the bandages wrapped around his chest. Lester was struggling to take off his shirt and Caroline immediately went over to help. She helped him out of his shirt and into his pyjama top.

"Sorry Caroline didn't mean to scare you." He saw the concern and worry in her eyes. "I was bitten by a huge dog. Had to go to the hospital and be bandaged up". Lester closed his eyes and groaned he avoided looking into her eyes fearing that if he did she would know that he was lying.

"You should have called I'd have come by to patch you up. I would love to see where you work!" Caroline knew that he worked for a branch of the Government, but had never actually seen where. She was intrigued as to what he actually did. She had gotten used to various phone calls during the day and night, and had after the first few times of questioning, had reluctantly agreed to ignore them.

"Oh you would have been far too busy to see me, besides you have other patients who need you more than I do" Lester eased himself down on the bed with Caroline's help, feeling very weary and sore. All he wanted to do was sleep.

"No, fairly quiet, I had just got home and was called back out to see to Mr Mansfield who decided he was not going to take any of his Meds."

Caroline sat down next to her husband of twenty years. Their children Andrew and Hannah had moved away. Andrew was now at University, studying Palaeontology. Hannah was now living with her boyfriend. The house would be very quiet. She had briefly looked over James' bandages when she was helping him with his shirt. They were very secure. She would see if Lester would let her change them in the morning.

"Have you been given anything for the bites? Any painkillers? Tetanus?"

"I've just taken a few paracetamol, should be fine soon, not sure about the Tetanus." James hated needles. He hoped that she would not insist on having a jab.

After insisting that Lester had something to eat, Caroline sent him to bed.

Hope you liked it.

I wonder if you realised where I've got various names from?

Read and review please.

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