Thank you so much to my beta alyse for betaing this twice! Thanks also to fredbassett for Brit-picking. You're fantastic. Any remaining mistakes are entirely my own.

It started off as a normal Tuesday.

Abby had woken up to the incessant beep-beep-beeping of her alarm clock. As she rubbed her eyes, she could hear the sound of Connor singing in the shower, loud and off-key. He seemed to be singing songs from the musical Sweeney Todd. She groaned. They should have never gone to see that musical together last week. Connor hadn't stopped singing the songs since. She regretted ever dragging him to see the musical.

She sighed as she padded over to the bathroom door, collecting clothes on the way. Connor always took a ridiculously long time in the shower. It meant she was going to have to rush her shower, and she hated that. She tapped her foot as she waited and was about ready to kill Connor when he finally emerged, dripping water from his hair everywhere. Abby scowled at him as she pushed past him, ignoring his bleated, "What?"

When she finally emerged, also dripping everywhere because Connor, of course, hadn't replaced the towels, he'd already made breakfast and this time for the both of them. Maybe she'd forgive him for using most of the hot water. Just this once.

After all, the eggs were very good.

However, they weren't good enough for her to let Connor drive them both to work, no matter how much he hinted around it and how much he pouted. Her car, her rules. Not that that worked for the flat.

Work too started normally. No anomalies had appeared in the past few days but the cleanup after the last anomaly was still going on. Abby sighed as she spent the entire morning filling in forms regarding the giant crocodile like creature that had appeared in a lake. It had prompted many of the general public to call the police, reporting a monster. The media had called it another Loch Ness monster but it was obvious that nobody believed the crazy campers who had claimed that the monster ate up all their supplies. "Irresponsible," the BBC reporter had said with a sniff as a couple hikers were found half-naked with no supplies and a wild story about crocodiles.

But it was all normal. After all, they'd been doing stuff like this for years.

Lunch too was normal. Abby got a tuna sandwich, which wasn't particularly nice, but it was much better than the pie their cafeteria had served the previous lunchtime. Connor munched on his chips and dipped them in vinegar. The acrid smell made Abby's nose tingle.

"I don't know how you can eat that," she said, wrinkling her nose.

Connor shrugged. "They're nice," he said, stuffing several chips into his mouth.

Abby rolled her eyes and went back to her own sandwich.

Then, after lunch, the shit hit the fan.

Almost literally.

Connor's anomaly detection device went crazy complete with flashing lights and sirens. The sound of it seemed to pierce through her skull. Abby made a silent note to tell Connor to turn down the volume in the future.

"Another one?" Cutter asked, peering over Connor's shoulder, his forehead furrowed. "Where's this one? I hope it's not that far."

Connor punched a few keys on his keyboard and his mouth fell open. "I… it…" he stuttered.

Abby looked over from the other side of the room. "Spit it out, Connor," she said irritably. She ran her fingers through her hair. It felt slightly sticky as if she hadn't got all of the conditioner out. Damn Connor for making her have a quick shower! Inevitably, every time she hurried her showers, she ended up missing something.

"It's here," Connor managed to get out in a strangled tone.

"Hm?" Cutter asked, tilting his head to one side to look more closely at the screen. It was then that Abby heard a loud crashing sound in the distance. She jumped up and rushed over to look over Connor's shoulder as well.

"It's here. In the ARC," Connor said again. "Here," he added again, unnecessarily.

Abby could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Connor couldn't be saying what she thought he was saying. She stared at the computer screen and sure enough, the little flashing dot showed the anomaly centred right over their location. It couldn't be! The ARC was supposed to be a safe haven for them! Nothing was supposed to attack them inside these walls. Well, except Leek, but Abby never thought that an anomaly would appear inside the ARC.

"Do we know where exactly it is?" Cutter demanded.

Connor shook his head. "It's not that precise," he said, shaking his head. "It's supposed to only pinpoint a location for us."

A sudden crashing sound right outside their door made them all look up. Almost as one, they all looked up at each other. Connor's eyes widened imperceptibly as Cutter dove for a gun on the table that had been left there since their last mission. He loaded the gun in one swift motion, clicked off the safety and pointed it at the door.

Abby stared at the door with bated breath. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her hands were shaking slightly. No matter how many times she did this, no matter how many times they were attacked by creatures that had come through the anomalies, she still felt the same thrill and the same fear. Except, now, it was different. Now an anomaly had appeared on their own turf and it was so much worse. She inhaled sharply as she saw the door move slightly. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Connor's finger poised on the trigger button. She braced herself against the wall, steadying herself, ready to kick out at the intruder.

The door opened fully.

Abby breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't some unmentionable creature coming through an anomaly. It was only Jenny who was looking around at them with narrowed eyes.

"We need to get out of here!" Jenny snapped. "There are dinosaurs running loose everywhere!" She strode decisively over to one of the walls, upon which there was a huge red button. She pushed her way past Connor, who was still frozen, staring at the flashing anomaly on the screen. She slapped her hand down on the control panel, on the big red button. Abby had always wondered what that was for – it had always struck her as very 'evil genius', the kind of thing Connor would put there just because he could. As the sirens started to wail out, she suddenly got what it actually was.

Panic button.

She stared at the control panel. It said 2.05. 2.05pm on Tuesday afternoon. It was weird what you noticed when you were terrified.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not here.

She snapped back to reality as a recorded female voice began to order everybody to evacuate the ARC. It was one of those calm voices that reminded Abby of announcements at airports. It was distinctly unsuited to the type of voice activated by a big red panic button.

Connor grabbed her arm and began to drag her forward. Abby shook her head slightly and gave herself a mental kick. This was no time to react slowly. She stumbled forward and grabbed two guns from the rack against the wall and threw one towards Connor. He caught it easily and grinned at her, lifting the gun in the air. At the back of her mind, she couldn't help realizing that they had all got so violent after working for the ARC. It was as if they had all got used to running around and shooting at things. Cutter got to the door first and Abby could see him pause before holding his finger up to his lips. He stuck his head out and looked right, then left before giving them the thumbs up.

"We need more weapons," Cutter mouthed at them. "I'm going to find the anomaly. Make sure that non-essential personnel are out safely, if you can and then meet me at the weapons locker."

Abby watched as Jenny removed her heels and threw them back into the room they were in. She then took off in the direction of the weapons locker. Abby followed her quickly, trying not to make sounds on the floor using her sneakers. "Where's the anomaly?"

"Not sure," Jenny gasped.

They rounded a corner and almost immediately skidded to a halt. There was a herd of small dinosaurs heading towards them, careening through corridors and bouncing off the walls. Abby could see people running, screaming despite their training. It was apparent that nobody had expected an anomaly to appear in the ARC.

"It's a Deinonychus!" Connor yelled.

Abby looked wildly around and spotted an open office door. They all ran towards it and she slammed the door behind them. Outside the office, she could hear the herd stampeding past. When it was silent again, she breathed a sigh of relief. "That was close!"

"You're telling me," Jenny managed to get out, still gasping slightly for breath. "We need to get to the weapons locker, now!"

"And we need to get to the anomaly to lock it," Connor added, running his fingers through his hair, looking frazzled.

Abby tiptoed to the door and gingerly opened it. The corridor outside looked clear. The only sign that a herd of rampaging dinosaurs had been through just moments before were the scratches on the floor and scuffs on the walls. "I think it's clear out here," she said over her shoulder. Gripping her pistol tightly, Abby stepped out into the corridor. Behind her, she could hear the soft squeak of Connor's shoes and the padding noises of Jenny's stockinged feet.

Abby tried to quiet down her own heartbeat that seemed to be humming in her ears like a flock of birds. Her hands were slippery as she clutched the pistol. Behind her, she could hear harsh panting coming from either Connor or Jenny. She resisted the urge to turn around and tell them to be quiet. This was no time for them to fight among themselves. They were facing at least one group of very dangerous dinosaurs roaming the corridors of the ARC. They had an anomaly open to what was obviously a dangerous period with lots of dinosaurs. There was no telling what else might come through the anomaly. They could all hear the sound of gunfire as well as people screaming; it sounded so close.

Abby gritted her teeth as she looked cautiously around a corner. Her eyes widened as she took in the sight. One of their military folk - Abby hated that she didn't even know his name - was being herded into a corner by three of the dinosaurs. She wasn't sure, but it seemed to be some sort of predatory pincer move, definitely intelligent. He was holding a pistol in one shaking hand. Behind the dinosaurs, there were remnants of automatic weapons fire and several dead dinosaur bodies.

She took a deep breath, held up her gun and took aim. Her first bullet went through the shoulder of the lead dinosaur, who seemed to shrug it off as if it was a bee sting. It turned around to look at her. Abby tensed as it seemed to be deciding whether to come after her. The soldier took that point to choose to empty the rest of his clip into the dinosaur who faltered and fell. The other two dinosaurs stepped around their companion almost delicately. One leaned over the man.

Abby turned away as she heard a sickening crunch. "Not this way," she mouthed to Connor and Jenny who were looking at her with widened eyes.

But Connor wasn't looking at her, or it seemed even listening to her. He was looking over her shoulder, with his eyes wide and his mouth open. "RUN!" he screamed. Jenny had a similar expression on her face.

Abby didn't hesitate. She had learned not to hesitate the last few years she had been working for the ARC. She simply began running as fast as she could after Connor and Jenny. Behind her, she could hear scratches and squealing noises that told her that at least one member of the herd had probably just noticed them. Abby couldn't help but look over her shoulder as she ran. She knew that she shouldn't. Every training manual they had been made to read told them that, but she did anyway.

The dinosaur was less than two meters away and closing in fast. Abby lengthened her stride. As she ran, she pushed aside a chair into the dinosaur's path and heard it skid behind her. It seemed to have bought them at least several seconds. Ahead of her, she could see Connor and Jenny trying doors at random as they ran, but all of them seemed to be locked.

Abby gasped as she could feel her breath coming quickly. She could feel her legs slowing down slightly, not enough to matter normally, but deadly in this circumstance. She thought she could feel the breath of the dinosaur brushing the back of her neck.

Just as she thought that she wouldn't take another breath, that the next step she took, she would feel the dinosaur biting down on the back of her neck or shoulder, she heard the rapid, ear-piercing sound of automatic gun fire. Abby skidded to a stop and looked wide-eyed at Cutter who was standing in front of them holding one of the biggest guns in their weapons locker.

She turned around slowly and could see the dinosaur bleeding out slowly onto the floor, gasping for breath. "I'm sorry," she said helplessly. It wasn't the dinosaur's fault and she knew that. It didn't mean to come through the anomaly into a completely unfamiliar world. And now it was dead.

"Good work, Cutter," Jenny said, still breathing heavily.

Connor simply looked around with widened eyes. It took Abby half a second to realize that they had ended up next to the weapons locker and Cutter was holding out M4s to everybody. "The anomaly's in the rec room on level two," Cutter said, sounding tired. "Connor, you and Abby go and close it."

Abby bit her lip. "You're going to kill them all, aren't you?"

Cutter whirled on her. "You might not have noticed, Abby, but you were almost killed by one of them!" he barked out. She couldn't help but notice that his accent got thicker whenever he was furious. "We don't have a choice here!"

Abby grimaced slightly. She knew that but it still rankled that they had to do this. Connor grabbed her arm and dragged her away down the hallway.

"We need to head by my lab for the device," Connor said abruptly once they were out of earshot.

She sighed. "It isn't their fault, you know," she pointed out. "They didn't ask to come through the anomaly and be shot at by us."

"And it's not our fault either," Connor snapped.

Abby had to concede that point. They walked along the corridor in silence until Abby felt her heart going at a more normal speed. "We should have had precautions for this," she muttered. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see Connor nodding.

They were both glad that Connor's lab was empty and seemed untouched by the dinosaurs. Connor rushed in and grabbed the anomaly closing device, wires trailing the ground behind him. Abby rolled her eyes and grabbed the wires, heaping them on top of the device. "You'll cover me, won't you?" Connor asked nervously.

It still sounded strange to Abby whenever somebody asked her that type of question. "Of course," she snapped. "Come on!"

It was almost silent as they crept along the empty corridors, the silence only punctured by distant screams. Abby noticed a cowering technician in one of the rooms they passed and she briefly considered trying to help him but decided that they didn't have time. She was beginning to think that they might get to the anomaly without passing any more dinosaurs when they rounded a corner and were faced with a pair of salivating jaws.

"Shit!" Connor yelled from behind her.

Abby had to agree with his sentiment. She pointed her M4 and let out a barrage of bullets while they both spun and ran away in the opposite direction. "Stairs!" she panted as they passed a stairwell. In the distance, she could hear that her gunfire had attracted more of the dinosaurs.

Connor yanked open the door to the stairwell and dove inside. Abby followed, slamming the door behind them. "Rec room on level two, eh?" Connor muttered. "What's the chance there are more on that level."

Abby shouldered her gun and began to walk up the stairs. "Hopefully, Cutter's sorted them out by now," she said grimly.

When they got up to level two, Cutter was already waiting for them. "Figured you'd use the stairs," he said. "We've cleared this level the best we could but they keep on coming through the anomaly. We need to close it!"

Connor made a face and indicated the device he was carrying. "We're going to do that."

Slowly, they made their way towards the rec room. All around them, there were signs of a firefight and dead dinosaurs. Abby's stomach turned as they passed a dead soldier. As they turned into the rec room, she felt the familiar awe at the sight of the anomaly. No matter how many times she saw them, they were still beautiful.

"It'll just take me a sec," Connor muttered as he placed his equipment on the table and began tinkering with it.

Cutter took a position by the door and Abby kept her gun trained on the anomaly.

"Almost!" Connor called.

"Hurry up," Abby snapped. She saw the head of another dinosaur, one she didn't recognize, emerge from the anomaly. It snapped its jaws at Connor. She took a deep breath and pulled the trigger, which tore a hole in its head. It slumped to the ground, dead.

"There!" Connor yelled as he jabbed a button.

Immediately, the anomaly became spherical. Abby sighed in relief. It was locked. No more would be coming through. They should be able to deal with the rest of the dinosaurs still in the building.

It was apparent that Cutter was thinking along similar lines. "Off to take care of the rest then," he said, shouldering his gun.

Abby was glad when she didn't have to participate in the sweep for any remaining dinosaurs. She was drenched in sweat and Connor had to almost pry the gun from her fingers. They had always considered the ARC to be a sanctuary away from the anomalies. Now they knew how untrue that was. The ARC wasn't somehow magically immune to anomalies. They weren't safe here. They weren't safe anywhere. She could see that look of realisation in everybody's eyes.

Her fingers trembled as she pulled on a clean shirt and bundled her old clothing into her locker. She'd do the laundry tomorrow. She really didn't feel like doing anything tonight but collapsing onto a bed and sleeping.

"Go home," Cutter had ordered when he saw how bedraggled both she and Connor looked.

Connor looked like he was about to argue but Abby jabbed him in the ribs. "You can tinker with the damn detector in the morning," she whispered. "Come on!"

Connor looked grumpy. Abby suspected that he felt guilty for the fact the anomaly had appeared in the ARC even though he had nothing to feel guilty about. Looking over at him, Abby felt a wave of fondness wash over her. He had such an earnest expression on his face that she wanted to hug him. She was so glad that they'd both made it through. Abby bit her lip as she thought of the casualty list: four military and one civilian. She knew that it could have been much higher, but none of those five needed to die

"Let's get some ice-cream," Connor suggested as they were walking towards the exit.

Abby was startled. It was obvious that she wasn't the only person affected by today's events. Connor was looking at her with an endearing grin. "Sure," she relented. Anything was better than the upset expression he was wearing earlier.

As they walked out the front door, they turned left instead of right, towards the ice-cream parlour. It was one of those old-fashioned parlours, one of the last in their area and Abby loved it. She especially loved the peppermint buttermilk flavour, one that was unique to this particular parlour.

In retrospect, Abby would have turned right towards home, dragged him there and tied him up. It would have saved them both a lot of grief.

Once they had walked several metres, Abby couldn't help turning around and marvelling at how innocuous the ARC building looked. It was a short squat looking building, seemingly three stories tall, except she knew that it extended far underground. Large block letters proclaimed the building as the non-existent National Grains Board. To the untrained eye the building looked like every other government building. People came and left every day, dressed in suits. Cars came and went. The difference was that any normal person who went in by the front door would have been politely asked to make an appointment for another day. Anybody who insisted would have been escorted off the premises by heavily armed guards. Not that these occurrences were regular. To most of their neighbours, they were just normal civil servants who went about their nine to five jobs just like everybody else. In fact, she wasn't even sure that Lester knew the full size of the building they used. All she knew that the lifts had buttons for everything above ground and everything from sub-basement four to six was restricted even to them. Those working at the ARC went in by a side entrance. This one was far more heavily guarded, required fingerprint and retinal identification, and went immediately down to sub-basement one.

They had barely walked half a block when Connor stopped dead in his tracks and grabbed her arm.

"What?" she said irritably.

"I think there's something there," Connor said, pointing towards an alley on their left.

Abby turned her head. She could see a rubbish bin and a couple of stray cats. There was also a godawful smell in the air. "I can't see anything," she said doubtfully. "Come on, I think you need a fudge sundae, especially after today."

Connor was frowning. "I could have sworn I saw something sparkle." He hesitated. "Like an anomaly."

Abby felt her heart beat faster. After today and all the close calls they had in the past, she didn't want to take any chances. "We'd better go back inside and tell the others," she said. "Or check your anomaly detector."

Connor was still peering into the dark alleyway. "I could have just imagined it."

Abby grabbed his arm. "Do you want to take that chance?

He sighed and then turned to her with that cute lopsided grin that always melted her heart. "Okay then," he said.

Abby was about to turn around to head back to the ARC when she heard a strange whirring noise behind her. It sounded electronic, like a high-pitched whine. Most definitely not a natural sound. "Con-" she started as she began to spin around.

She caught a brief glimpse of something that looked like an anomaly, all sparkling and glittering, except it seemed to be stretching towards them. Bright light enveloped her and slowly extended out to Connor. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see his startled expression.

And then everything went black.

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby turned over in bed and groaned. Her head was feeling fuzzy, her memory not as easily accessible as it should have been. She felt like there was something important that she had forgotten, but she wasn't sure what it was. She propped herself up on one arm and used the other hand to rub at her eyes.

What was it that she had forgotten?

She frowned. Slowly, the events of the previous day came back to her. How had she got back to her bed? The last thing she remembered was standing outside the ARC with Connor looking at something that looked like an anomaly but wasn't quite one. It had been extending towards them.

Abby shivered.

"Connor!" she called. "Connor!" She waited a few seconds and then realized she could hear the sound of the shower running. Obviously, Connor was having a shower. She swung her feet off the bed and padded towards the bathroom in her underwear. Connor never locked the bathroom door. She knocked briefly on it before opening it.

Connor was standing in the shower with his hands over his private parts. "Abby!" he exclaimed with a shocked expression. "What the hell are you doing in here?"

She waved a hand impatiently. "You don't have anything that I haven't seen before," she said. He still didn't remove his hands. "Look," she continued and then hesitated, "did you experience anything weird yesterday?"

"Nothing at all," Connor said after a pause. "All we did was fill out forms all day."

Abby stared. "But what about the dinosaurs?"

Connor looked blank. "What dinosaurs?"

She wracked her brain for the name Connor had called them yesterday. "You said that it was a Deinonychus."

He gave her an excited look. "You mean there was a Deinonychus yesterday and nobody told me?"

Abby sighed. She obviously wasn't getting through to him. "You were there!" she snapped, resisting the urge to smack the back of his head. "We had a normal morning and then the dinosaur ran around the ARC for half the afternoon. Then we went outside and some anomaly sucked us in and then I woke up here!"

"Uh, Abby?" Connor said, looking hesitant. "I think you just had a bad dream. Can you please get out of the bathroom now?" Water trickled down his face, into his eyes but he made no move to lift his hands away from his groin to wipe it away.

"Fine," she said with a sigh and threw up her hands.

Once back to her room, Abby sat down on her bed and buried her face in her hands. Was it just a dream? It had seemed so realistic. It couldn't have just been in her head.

At the ARC, Jenny came over and handed her forms to fill out. "More stuff to do with the crocodile," she said with a sigh. Abby gave her a look, frowning. "It'll get done faster if we all get our mission reports in."

Abby glanced quickly over the papers. "But I think I've already filled these ones out," she said, with a frown. "Didn't you give me the exact same set yesterday?" She held out the papers.

Jenny took them. "I don't think so. I know they all look similar." She gave a sympathetic smile. "But we really need to do them. I'm just glad that some of you don't end up running away from me like Cutter does when I come up to him with forms."

Abby laughed. "Typical," she said.

Jenny gave her a wry smile. "Connor's about the same. I think he's still tinkering with his Anomaly Detector."

A shiver went down Abby's back. She could have sworn that Jenny had come up to her yesterday and made the same jokes. She watched as the other woman walked off, steady on her high heels that would have made Abby stumble and fall flat on her face. She wasn't sure but she thought that Jenny might have been wearing the same red dress yesterday. She thought she recognized the black lacing. But Jenny never wore the same clothing two days in a row, Abby thought with consternation.

Turning to the paperwork in front of her, Abby picked up her pen and decided to knuckle down and start writing the report. So what if she thought she had written the same damn thing yesterday? Maybe it was just a really vivid and realistic dream. She had read about those.

She started writing:

We first realized something was wrong when we turned on BBC news and saw the report of a monster …

Abby found herself nervously clenching her hands into fists when lunchtime came around. She nibbled at her tuna sandwich, not feeling hungry enough to eat it properly. Her stomach churned; she pushed the sandwich away. She wasn't going to eat when she felt like this. It never worked out well.

"Are you okay?" Connor asked as he came over to sit next to her.

"I'm not sure," Abby admitted. "I just feel this really weird feeling of déjà vu." She bit down on her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth.

Connor looked awkward. "Is it the same thing you were talking about this morning?"

Abby nodded. She really hated this feeling of uncertainty. There was a reason why she went into science. A part of her, when she was young – really young – had wanted to be a writer. But years and years of English class at school had somehow put a damper on her dreams and she had ended up in science instead. It was far more certain. And she loved reptiles.

But then the whole anomaly thing had come along. And with that went her certainty.

She turned to Connor and forced a smile. "I'm fine." She took a big bite of her sandwich, ignoring how it tasted like sandpaper in her mouth.

Connor looked uncertain. She was sure that he didn't buy her act, but he didn't push it. Connor might be ridiculously immature at times with the social graces of a ten year old boy, but sometimes she was really grateful for the times when he did clue in. "Well then," he said slowly, "I need to get back to my Anomaly Detector but if you need anything…" he hesitated, "anything at all… or if you need to talk, I'm always here." He grinned. "Well, at your place, sometimes."

"Thanks," Abby said, feeling genuinely grateful. She decided that she must have had an incredibly vivid dream the night before. She certainly couldn't remember having this conversation with Connor ever before. Standing up, she decided to head off to her office instead of going over to Connor's lab to tinker with the new artefact they had brought through the anomaly.

Abby's head snapped up when she heard the wailing of sirens. With trepidation, she looked over at the clock on her computer and could feel her heart sink. It was exactly 2:05 pm. She pushed her chair back with a scrape and ran outside into the corridor. Men in military uniforms were running past, shouldering their guns. "What's happening?" she asked one who paused by the office.

The man brushed his hair away from his face. "Dinosaurs," he said grimly. "They've come through an anomaly in the ARC."

Abby stared.

He obviously took her surprise as horror. "It'll be fine. Just stay inside the office."

She glared at him. "Look, Dawkins, I'm not scared. I'm just a bit…"

"Surprised," he offered with a raised eyebrow. His radio crackled. "We all are. Look, I have to go."

Abby nodded and watched as he hurried off. She wondered whether she should head towards the main room. That was where she was yesterday… in her dream, she amended. Her dream that was somehow coming true.

"Abby!"

The voice broke into her thoughts. She looked up and saw Connor standing outside the office. "Why are you here?" he asked. "Didn't you hear the announcement?"

She shook her head.

"Non-essential personnel are supposed to evacuate. We're supposed to go and arm up," he said quickly and grabbed her arm. "I was worried about you so I came by to check on you."

Abby nodded and followed him out of the room. They both carefully looked right and left. No dinosaurs in sight. Connor began to jog towards the nearest lift. Abby followed him, feeling rather glad that she didn't wear heels like Jenny. Not that she ever wore heels, except when her mother forced her, but still. She couldn't imagine trying to jog in those heels. She was surprised Jenny could walk, but obviously the woman walked and quite well too!

Connor stopped suddenly. "Shit," he whispered and pushed her back.

She took one tentative step forward and peered around the corner. Fuck. There, around the corner, was a Deinonychus, coming slowly towards them.

"Back," she said quietly and dragged Connor backwards.

The Deinonychus tilted its head and sniffed towards them. It then began to stalk towards them.

Abby began to run back towards her office. Behind her, she could hear Connor panting. And behind him, she could hear the Deinonychus running, its claws slipping on the concrete floors. "Get into an office," he called.

"I'm not leaving you outside here to deal with that!" Abby yelled.

"Get into the damn office," Connor snapped. Somehow he had managed to grab a fire extinguisher and was spraying the ground in front of the dinosaur. It made a hissing noise at them.

She skidded to a stop outside a random office. "Come inside too!"

"I can't. I need to distract this. It'll come crashing through the window," Connor gasped as he desperately fended off the Deinonychus. With one hand, he shoved her into the office and slammed the door.

Abby stumbled and hit her head on one of the desks. The world spun around her like a merry-go-around as she pushed herself up off the floor. She could almost see the bobbing horses dancing around her. She tried to stand up but the world spun around. It felt like she was completely drunk, not just normally drunk, but flat-out-on-the-floor drunk. Her fingers trembled as she pushed herself off the floor. Fighting back a wave of nausea, she leaned up against a table.

The world swam before her eyes again and as it cleared slowly, Abby could see Connor stumbling outside. She tried again to run out to help him, but she only made it as far as the door before she slumped to the ground. This couldn't be happening, she told herself firmly. She needed to get out to help Connor. She had to help him. He was depending on her. She pushed herself up again and this time, she seemed to be able to stay upright.

Swaying slightly, Abby looked around desperately for something to use as a weapon. Her eyes settled upon a paperweight she kept on her desk and lunging over, she grabbed it. Ignoring the red spots in her vision, she half-stumbled half-ran towards the door. She thought she could hear the sound of military boots coming down the corridor. "They're coming, Connor!" Abby shouted, hoping that he could hear her through the still closed door. She could see him still desperately fending off the dinosaur's movements.

Connor turned slowly towards her.

And then.

It seemed to happen in slow motion.

The entire scene seemed ridiculous, like something out of a movie. The dinosaur leapt forward, its claws making a scratching sound that even Abby could hear from within the room. Its jaws clamped around Connor's neck with a sickening crack. Blood sprayed the window.

Abby swallowed and turned her head away, her hand over her mouth, her heart pounding. It couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't be Connor out there writhing over the floor as the dinosaur stood over him. It couldn't be Connor's screams she heard. It couldn't be Connor out there. And Connor certainly couldn't be dead. He just couldn't.

There was a loud shot. She looked back out the blood-splattered window. Dawkins was standing over the dead Deinonychus with a grim look on his face. Abby ran to the door and wrenched it open. Immediately, the smell of blood and entrails assaulted her. She gagged slightly but kept on going towards Connor.

"Connor," she whispered through a lump in her throat. A tear trickled down her face. "Connor, can you hear me?"

He made a gurgling sound at the back of his throat that could have been her name. His head turned slightly and then was still.

"No," Abby gasped, "no, no, no, no, no!" She had left him out here. It was all her fault. She hadn't warned them enough. She hadn't made sure that they were all safe even though she knew that this attack was coming.

She was still there by the time Cutter came, looking sweaty and determined. He pulled her away from where she was clasping Connor's body. Abby didn't care that she was all bloody. She glared up at Cutter with red-rimmed eyes. "We can fix this, right?" she demanded. "You said that she," she pointed a finger at Jenny, "was some woman called Claudia once. If that can happen, we can fix this! We can bring Connor back!"

Cutter gave her a sad look and wrapped his arms around her. "I'm so sorry, Abby," he said softly.

Abby just couldn't believe this was happening. She was crying. Connor's blood was all over her. Yet, in her head, she knew he was still alive. He had to be. Who else would wake her up in the morning with his annoyingly long showers? Who else would bring evil girlfriends in to meet her? Who else would be so ridiculous… so insensitive, but so…

This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. It wasn't real. It wasn't.

Connor's blood was soaking into her jeans, and her hands, when she brought them up to her face, were shaking and were red.

It wasn't real, none of it was real, even the tears that were streaming down her face weren't real because there was no reason to cry. There was no body in her arms, no blood on her fingers, no acrid metallic smell in the air.

Connor wasn't dead. This was all a dream. It had to be…

She couldn't even finish that train of thought.

"I'm sorry," Jenny said quietly.

Abby just looked blankly up at her.

Later that evening, Abby sat in Lester's office with a blanket around her shoulders and a cup of hot cocoa in her hands. Jenny had tried to put extra sugar in it, but Abby waved her hand away. Connor had liked his cocoa with no sugar, she thought. She sipped it. It was bitter but she swallowed it anyway. The blanket around her shoulders was scratchy.

It was getting late, but nobody had left yet. It had been left to the military contingent of the ARC to clean up the corridor and to herd the rest of the dinosaurs back through the anomaly which had closed hours ago. Connor's body was in one of the empty rooms.

A part of Abby had wanted to go through the anomaly with the dinosaurs with guns blazing. She knew that they weren't responsible for their actions, but she still wanted to see all the dinosaurs ripped apart by rapid automatic gun fire. She wanted to see their blood splattered on the walls of the ARC instead of Connor's blood. Irrationally, she wondered if they would ever get the blood out of the carpeting. The dinosaurs were responsible for Connor's death. The anomaly was responsible. Helen Cutter was responsible for going through it eight years ago. Cutter was responsible for bringing her in on this.

But she seemed to have no energy for movement.

Jenny was sitting in with her, a look of worry on her face. "Is there anything I can do?" she asked.

Abby looked up at her and noticed for the first time that the other woman's makeup was smudged. Jenny looked like she had been crying. I'm not the only person here who cares about Connor, she realized suddenly. As much as Cutter and the others joked about Connor's presence, they all really care. She shook her head mutely.

There was a sudden beeping sound.

Jenny got up and walked over to Lester's desk and picked up something. "It's… Connor's Anomaly Detector," she said quietly. "It's picking up something, just outside the ARC."

Abby sat up suddenly. This was happening exactly like her dream. She felt another lump in her throat. In the dream, they had gone for ice-cream after work and seen the anomaly. She could feel her eyes prickling with tears at that thought and how she teased Connor about his predilection for fudge sundaes. Now, in reality, Connor was dead and…

She sniffed and lifted up the already sodden tissue to her eyes.

"I'd better go out to see if somebody else has realized," Jenny said. She still looked really worried. "Do you think that you'll be all right here by yourself for a few minutes?"

Abby nodded.

Jenny left. Abby noticed that she seemed to have taken off her heels. Sitting there, she sipped the cocoa again.

Abby then frowned. She could have sworn that there was a glow coming from her mug. She looked up, startled, and then noticed that the glow was enveloping the entire room. It grew brighter, and brighter until she couldn't see any more.

This is just like the dream, she thought before she blanked out.

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby sat bolt upright in bed. She reached up and could feel that her cheeks were wet from crying. How did I end up here, she wondered. Maybe Jenny had brought her back after she had fainted. Although she always thought that fainting involved the world going dark, not going all bright.

And then yesterday came rushing back. The insane dream. The anomaly. The dinosaurs.

And Connor.

He was dead.

She would never see him again. Never see the ridiculous grin he wore whenever he won a video came. Never see the insanity of his food creations. Never hear his snoring again or his off-key singing. She would never have to yell at him for hogging her shower again.

Her lip trembled and she reached for the tissues next to her bed. Blowing her nose noisily, Abby grabbed the teddy that was on the bookshelf on the other side of the bed and hugged it. She buried her face in its soft fur.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed but she almost screamed when she heard footsteps entered her room. Her head shot up and she stared.

"What's wrong?"

Abby blinked several times to make sure that she wasn't hallucinating. She pinched herself. "Connor!" she gasped and launched herself out of bed and hugged him. When she let go, he looked distinctly uncomfortable, standing there, slightly damp in only a towel.

"That was… nice," he said. "What was it for?"

"You're not… you're not dead!" she almost shouted.

He stared at her. "Of course I'm not," he said in a matter-of-fact voice. He hesitated and walked over to her, with an awkward look on his face. "It was a bad dream, Abby," he said. He grinned, suddenly. "I'm glad you cared though." He gave her a quick hug and then turned around and left the room.

Abby stared after him. She could have sworn that he was dead. She had felt his blood coursing through her hands, staining her jeans. She still felt raw inside. She reached down and touched her pillow. It was still wet with her tears. Was this yet another dream? Or was it something more? Both times there had been the bright, bright light. What was happening to her?

By the time Abby made her way downstairs, Connor was sitting there with a bowl of cereal sitting in front of her chair. "I made it for you," he said with a sheepish grin. "I also rang Lester and told him that you … er… were having womanly issues and that I needed to do a quick run out to the supermarket and that we'd be a bit late."

Abby was torn between wanting to hug him and strangle him. She was so completely glad that Connor was alive, yet the man aggravated her sometimes. She certainly didn't want Lester knowing about her menstrual cycle.

She sat down and looked at her bowl. Inside were rice crispies with … "Connor!" she said with a giggle, "is that chocolate milk on my rice crispies?"

Connor grinned at her. "I caught you eating that once. I know you like it."

Abby couldn't help a blush that spread over her cheeks. Just when Connor was being his most annoying, he managed to do something really surprising. "Thanks," she said quietly. She watched Connor turn around and was suddenly struck with a desperate need for him to stay in the room. She needed to know that he was real, that he wouldn't just disappear once he was out of sight. "Sit down," she said. "Have some breakfast. Thanks again for mine, by the way."

"No problem," Connor said as he sat down. "I was really worried this morning. You looked like you had you'd lost your best friend." He hesitated. "For a second there, I thought you'd got a phone call from your family or something."

Abby bit her lip. Her best friend had died. She didn't know how, but somehow Connor had died and now he was alive again. She'd had dreams where people had died. It didn't feel like this. She still had a hollow feeling inside of her. She still felt a bizarre joyous feeling whenever she looked at Connor and the fact he was sitting at the breakfast table beside her, smiling at her. "Just…" she hesitated. "Just a bad dream." She managed a smile.

At work, Jenny handed her the same pile of paperwork that she had given Abby yesterday. She was also wearing the same red dress with black lace edging. And she managed to say the exact same thing. Abby was beginning to remember the spiel now.

"Nice dress," Abby commented blandly

Jenny looked surprised. "You know," she said, "I don't think you've ever commented on my clothes before. Thank you."

"You dress well," Abby said. "Not really my style, but it's still nice."

Jenny smiled slightly and raised an eyebrow. "I appreciate the sentiment. Now I'd better go and deliver the rest of these to the rest of the team. Cutter will probably run away. You know how he is."

Abby managed a smile, even though the joke was getting a little old.

Once Jenny had left, she stared once more at the paperwork. If this continues, she thought, I'll have this damn report memorized.

Cutter stopped by her office just before lunch. He had a concerned expression on his face. "Connor came by to see me earlier this morning," he said gently. "He said that you've been under a lot of stress. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Oh Connor, Abby thought with a tinge of annoyance. She then frowned. Perhaps if anybody would understand or help her, then it would be Cutter. But how would she explain it to him without it without ridiculous? "What would you say if I told you," she began, "that I've been experiencing the same day, over and over again."

Cutter stared at her. "Have you?"

"How is it any more improbable than anomalies?" she asked.

"Anomalies are based on science," Cutter pointed out.

"Uh huh," she said. "What science?"

He looked at her before giving her a slight smile. "Good point. We don't know anything about the anomalies, do we?"

"Except Helen and we don't know where she is."

"But what is this about your… groundhog day?" Cutter asked.

Abby hesitated. Now that it came down to it, she wasn't sure she really wanted to explain it to Cutter. She wasn't sure that he wouldn't nod gravely and then end up carting her off to a loony bin. After all, even inside her own head, she sounded rather crazy when she tried to explain it. "It was theoretical," she said, giving him a chipper smile.

Cutter looked unsure. "Do you need a day off? You really don't look well."

Abby let out a long breath. She thought the idea over. It might be a good idea, she thought. Maybe I'm coming unravelled. It's all this hard work. Maybe if I spent a day at home, with Rex, then everything would be alright again. "I'm fine," she said abruptly and then tried to soften her words with a smile. She didn't want to go home to the empty apartment. Even Rex wouldn't be able to cheer her up. Besides, she didn't want to leave Connor's side. Even going next door was difficult. She kept on finding excuses to come back and talk to him.

"If you're sure," Cutter said doubtfully.

Abby hesitated. Perhaps she wasn't feeling that normal after all. "Do you mind if Connor drives me home?"

Cutter shrugged. "No problem."

Abby was curled up in front of her TV, eating crisps and sipping a coke. She was trying her best to relax and was beginning to hope that it was just a horrible dream. In front of her, the credits for the daytime soap she was watching were beginning to roll.

Suddenly, her phone buzzed. She began to get a very bad feeling in her stomach as she reached over to grab it.

"Dinosaurs in the ARC," the message said tersely. "Situation under control."

Abby began to get a really bad feeling inside her stomach. She hoped the queasy feeling was due to the excess amount of coke and crisps she'd ingested but she doubted it.

She dialled Connor's number, praying that he would pick up, that he wasn't dead. She needed to hear his voice.

"Hey, Abby," Connor said.

She breathed a sigh of relief. "I got the text from Cutter."

"What a day for you to feel sick, eh?" Connor said cheerfully. "Don't worry. You won't even notice by tomorrow morning. You know how our good our clean-up crews are."

Abby made a non-committal noise.

"Anyway, I have to go," Connor said. "I'm working on fine-tuning my detector."

Abby put her phone down on the couch next to her. She stared at it, a sick feeling in her stomach. On the television, a overly-dressed presenter was babbling on about some holiday to Egypt that people could win, but she couldn't think about anything other than the fact that her dream… no her dreams… had come true.

She tried to concentrate on the TV, tried to pretend that everything was normal, but she found herself staring at the clock every minute. Around 6 pm, like clockwork, she noticed that the TV was beginning to get a bit of a glow around it. Oh fuck, Abby thought as she stared at it. The light got brighter.

"Abby!" Connor woke her up by shaking her.

She sat up and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "What is it?" she said blearily, staring over at her alarm clock. Almost, as if it knew she was looking, it began its customary: Beep-beep-beep. She hit the stop button.

His hair was sticking up at odd angles and from his nightclothes, Abby deduced that he obviously hadn't had a shower yet. "Do you…" he said and then hesitated. "Do you have this odd feeling of déjà vu?"

She gasped but tried to keep calm. Maybe she wasn't the only one going through this. Maybe she wasn't going crazy. "What do you mean?"

"I keep on getting a strange feeling," Connor said and ran a hand through his hair, messing it up more. "It's like… it's like this day's happened before. I seem to remember you asking me if I was dead or not, or something like that."

Abby couldn't help a huge grin from spreading over her face. "Yes!" she almost shouted.

He looked startled.

"The day has been repeating itself," she said. "This is the fourth time I've started this Tuesday." A sudden thought struck her. "At least, this is the fourth time I remember." Abby suddenly had a horrible thought that they might have been having Tuesdays for years. It was a creepy, disturbing thought.

"That's crazy," Connor said, but he didn't sound sure.

"Crazy," she agreed, "but it's happening." She stared down at her bedcovers. "You died."

Connor should have looked surprised but he didn't. "So that wasn't a dream," he said.

She nodded. "It was horrible losing you," she admitted softly.

He slung an arm around her shoulder and she hugged him tightly. When he let go, she pursed her lips and stared up at him. "I think it was the anomaly we went out to look at the first time. It sort of came towards us or sucked us in, I'm not sure. It must have done something. Thing is, I haven't had a chance to look at it again. Something… something's always happened."

Connor frowned. "I don't really remember the first time, but I remember what happened yesterday… or today…" He looked confused. "Well, anyway, there was a bright light."

"Yeah," she said. "And then I end up in bed."

There was a silence. Abby couldn't think of anything to fill it. What was a person supposed to do in a circumstance like this? It wasn't like the movie Groundhog Day. In that movie, the day repeated for no apparent reason. Besides, the main character was an idiot. The day repeated to stop him from being an idiot. Obviously, she was not a jackass – and Connor usually wasn't! And besides, the repeating day was caused by the weird anomaly. How were they supposed to fix that? They didn't know anything about anomalies.

"We need to tell the others," Connor said flatly.

Lester stared at them. "Is this some sort of bizarre April Fool's joke, in September?" he asked icily.

Abby shook her head fervently. "We're not crazy either," she said, voicing the concern she thought Cutter and Jenny had to be thinking. "It's really happening. We need to stop it."

"You have to admit," Cutter said slowly, "it does sound a bit fantastical." Abby opened her mouth. "But so did the anomalies the first time Connor came to tell me about them," he continued.

Connor looked pleased.

"Let's just imagine, for a second, that it's true," Lester pointed out. "How can we fix it? We're not exactly in this imaginary time loop."

Abby couldn't resist the urge to glare at him. "You don't believe us," she said bluntly.

Lester rolled his eyes. "Do you really expect us to?"

She had to admit that he had a point there. It was such a ridiculous story. If Lester or Cutter or Jenny had come to her with that kind of story then she would have probably backed away slowly and tried to get help. It sounded crazy. Insane. The problem was that it was true. She didn't want to experience this Tuesday again. She certainly didn't want to write out that damn paperwork again. Abby felt a lump in her throat and swallowed hard. She didn't want to feel Connor slipping away underneath her fingers. She didn't want to see the light go out of his eyes and feel his blood in between her fingers.

"Jenny was about to give us paperwork on the crocodile that appeared a few days ago," Abby said. "At exactly 2:05 pm this afternoon, an anomaly is going to appear in the ARC and a group of dinosaurs – Deinonychus – is going to come through the anomaly. And at around 7 pm tonight, the other anomaly is going to appear."

"And that one, it's the one that is making time loop for you and Connor?" Cutter asked.

She looked at him suspiciously but he looked like he was perfectly serious. "Yes," she said.

Lester looked tired. "We can deal with this tomorrow," he said. "There's too much stuff to do today. The public is still in a panicked frenzy over the crocodile."

"But that's the point!" Abby burst out. "We can't deal with it tomorrow! There is no tomorrow for us! There's only Tuesdays!" She suddenly thought of something. "You guys won't remember this conversation tomorrow," she said tiredly. She was beginning to think that this conversation was completely pointless. She needed to go and find the anomaly this afternoon. She didn't know what they would do once they got there, but surely if they went through it or something that would stop this! She never liked Tuesdays much to begin with. "Just promise you'll have Special Forces stationed in the second floor rec room," she added.

Lester stared at her.

"You need to do that!" Abby said. She knew that Lester would change his tune once he realized that they had correctly predicted that anomaly. "Promise me." She kept on seeing the faces of the dead soldiers and civilian.

"Fine," Lester snapped. "Now, everybody, back to work! There are far more important things here to do than catering to the delusions of these two!"

Abby was on tenterhooks all day, but especially after lunchtime. She had forgone her tuna fish sandwich. Somehow, the thought of fish made her stomach turn. As Abby suspected, Lester came bursting into the office at 2:10 pm. His usually neat hair looked wild and his eyes darted from side to side. His suit was mussed up and she could have sworn it looked like a small spot of blood on the collar.

"Fine," he snapped irritably, "somehow, beyond all reason, it seems that you are privy to the future." His eyes narrowed. "Or you are privy to some other information that you aren't telling us."

"Only to the future of today," Abby corrected. To her surprise, Lester rolled his eyes. It was really unlike him to be so dishevelled and unpolished. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"This is impossible," he said. "Impossible. There can't be a time loop." He stopped himself with visible effort. "When did you start experiencing it?"

"This is my fourth Tuesday in a row. The first time, as I explained earlier, Connor and I went outside to check out an anomaly." Lester gave her a look. "Yes, yes," Abby said impatiently. "Bad idea. I know. The anomaly. It somehow enveloped us. "

"Both of you?" he interrupted.

Abby frowned and thought back to the incident. Now that she thought about it, she seemed to remember that the anomaly thing had enveloped her with the bright light and then Connor. "No," she said. "The light got me first. Then Connor. Maybe that's why Connor didn't start remembering things until this cycle."

Lester shrugged, the motion looking strangely casual for him. "Perhaps," he said, frowning. "This is a new danger for all of us anyway. Who knows what these time loops could cause?"

"I'd like to get out of this one first," Abby pointed out.

"Have you tried anything yet?"

Abby glared at him. "What on earth do you want us to try?" she snapped. She had seen Connor die. It wasn't as though this was some scientific venture and she hadn't taken the right precautions. It had taken her two loops to actually get used to the idea that she was repeating the same day over and over. And Connor had died and … this whole situation was just so ridiculous! She was Abby Maitland. She wasn't supposed to be in situations like this. She was supposed to look after lizards and Connor. She shook her head.

"Maybe you should just try to step through the anomaly," Lester pointed out. "The one later this afternoon."

Abby tilted her head and thought. It was an idea. Deep inside, she thought it was a rather stupid idea, though. If being dragged into the anomaly in the first place started the time loop, wouldn't stepping through it do the same thing? Or worse? Couldn't it speed up the loop? But it wasn't as though they had any other choice. "I suppose," she said doubtfully.

They were already waiting outside the ARC by the time the Anomaly Detector started beeping. As Abby watched, a small, glittering spot appeared in the air in front of her, swirling, spinning until it coalesced into something that looked like a normal anomaly. Beside her, she could hear Connor breathing heavily. She looked over her shoulder and could see the entire team standing beside the side entrance. Jenny gave her a smile. Abby suspected that it was meant to be encouraging, but it didn't make her feel any better.

"So," Connor said, sounding nervous. "We should just step through?" He looked over to Abby.

Abby nodded and shouldered the M4 that Cutter had handed her. "Protection," he had explained. She was glad of the training they had all received over the past few years on weapons. Nervously, she reached out and clasped Connor's hand. His palm was warm and clammy and she suspected that her palm was in a similar condition.

"Let's do it," she said, fighting to keep her voice even and to keep the tremble from appearing. She didn't want to worry Connor who tended to get flustered in situations like this. "Come on," she said, glad that her voice sounded strong.

Together, they took slow measured steps towards the anomaly. At the event horizon, Abby took a deep breath and then stepped through. Connor was just half a step behind her.

She caught a brief glimpse of an alien landscape before a bright light assaulted her.

Beep-beep-beep.

Fuck. Abby sat up in bed. The last thing she remembered was stepping through the anomaly. There was possibly an alien landscape but she couldn't have been sure. It wasn't clear enough. It might have just been a dream. And then, she was back in bed at the beginning of the damned time loop.

"Crap," Connor said, as he came skidding into her room.

"Crap, indeed," she said, miserably, slumping down in bed. "I guess," she said after a short silence, "we should try something else to end it? I'm sure Lester has other ideas."

"Except, Lester won't have remembered the conversation," Connor pointed out.

Oh yeah. Abby felt like tearing her hair out in frustration. This was one thing the movies had got right. The complete and utter helplessness that a person felt when they were trapped in one of these time loops.

"Maybe we should just go and hit golf balls through an anomaly?" Connor said, half-jokingly.

Abby looked at him in consternation. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Don't worry," he said with a sigh. "I guess we'll go and explain it again to everybody." He sat down on the edge of her bed. She could see him biting his lower lip.

"And tomorrow, and the next day," Abby said ominously, running her fingers through her hair, leaving it spiked up.

They got a similar reaction that they got previously. Lester looked at both of them incredulously. "Dinosaurs are going to attack at 2 pm?"

Jenny looked worried. "Do you think that the stress of dealing with anomalies is getting to them?" she said. "Perhaps they should go to the medical wing?"

Abby could have screamed. This was worse than the last time. But despite her protests, she was marched to the medical wing under armed escort. Behind her, Connor was similarly escorted.

The doctor at the medical wing looked friendly enough. She'd never needed to visit the new medical wing before, so she didn't recognize the doctor. She looked at his nametag. "Doctor Richardson," she said.

Richardson gave her a warm smile. "Please, call me Peter. I will be seeing Miss Maitland first."

The guard nodded brusquely and Connor was led out of the room.

"Please," Richardson said and gestured towards the two chairs sitting beside his desk. "Please sit down."

She sat. "I'm not crazy," she explained. "I'm just in a time loop." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Abby knew that they weren't the right to say. From the quick expression that passed over Richardson's face, she knew that he didn't believe her.

"Uh huh," Richardson said and walked towards her. He leaned over and flashed a light at her eyes. "Please look up." He made an 'hmm' noise. "To the left. To the right. Now down." He stepped away from her and jotted down some notes.

Abby suddenly had an irrational fear that there was something actually wrong with her. Perhaps she was going crazy? Perhaps the past few years were simply a dream and she was actually locked in some mental hospital somewhere? After all, the idea of sparkly anomalies sending people to different times in the past and future was a bit fantastical.

"I'm going to have to take your pulse and blood pressure. I'll then run a few other tests." He smiled at her. "I promise, they're non-invasive."

A battery of tests later, Abby sat in a small room by herself, rubbing at the inside of her elbow. She'd never liked needles much. Looking up, she saw that the time was almost 2 pm. Well, she thought, at least they'd have to believe her and Connor after the anomaly appeared and people died. Like Connor. Her lip trembled. She suddenly realized that if this was really a time loop, since Connor had come back to life, there was nothing to say that the soldiers wouldn't also come back to life.

Connor had come back to life.

Abby could feel a tremulous smile spread over her face. Perhaps nobody could die. That was certainly a bonus. She would never lose Connor or anybody else.

About ten minutes later, Richardson came into the room. Connor was behind him. Richardson had lost his friendly smile. He reminded Abby of one of her first boyfriends, a creepy, controlling boy who had refused to let her have any male friends. It had taken her over six months before he'd leave her alone. Abby shivered slightly at the memory.

"Lester wants to see you two," Richardson said brusquely. "He'll be here any minute."

Connor obviously couldn't resist. "I guess they've decided we're not crazy now?"

Richardson gave them both a cold glare and then whirled out of the room, his white coat swirling around him.

Abby shot Connor a look. "You shouldn't have said that."

Abby was getting sick and tired of explaining the same thing over and over again. Everybody's reactions were so damn similar each time this happened. Lester kept on drawing his eyebrows together in the same annoying way. Jenny kept on scribbling on her notepad with a worried frown on her face. And Cutter always pursed his lips.

"We've tried that," Abby burst out when Lester suggested that they go through the anomaly in question. "We've tried waiting or not going near that anomaly. Nothing seems to work!"

"I still have difficulty believing this," Richardson snapped. "In my professional opinion, it is far more probable that the stress on these two young people has produced a psychotic break."

Abby could have punched him.

Even Lester seemed a bit perturbed. "How did they know about the anomaly and the dinosaurs then?"

Richardson gave a superior smile. "Is not Connor the young man who created our Anomaly Detector? Perhaps his machine detected the appearance of the anomaly this morning?"

Lester seemed to be considering what the other man was saying. "We have all been under a lot of stress," Lester finally said. "It may have had unanticipated results in these two. I believe they both need a psych exam."

"That's ridiculous!" Connor burst out. "That's not how it works. Cutter! Tell him!"

Richardson looked over at Cutter who nodded. "To the best of my knowledge, they simply don't work that way. They can't pre-emptively pick up anomalies. Our job would be much easier if they did." Cutter smiled wryly.

To Abby's annoyance, Lester seemed to ignore both of them.

Abby gritted her teeth as she sat on a chair in front of the psychiatrist. The entire room was decorated in neutral colours. Probably to make sure that psychotic people don't end up being triggered, she thought. A part of her realized that she was being unreasonable. Lester's reaction was perfectly normal. It still didn't stop the fact that he was completely and utterly wrong!

"How're you feeling today?" West asked.

She crossed and then uncrossed her legs. "Annoyed," Abby said. "Connor and I are in a time loop and I want out of it."

West nodded. "How about if we both agree to not talk about the time loop for the meantime?"

Abby fumed inwardly but she nodded anyway.

"How did you first feel when you started working on the Anomaly Project?"

Abby thought back. She had been brought into all of this because of the little kid who found Rex. It seemed like years ago now. Meeting Leek. Being introduced to the ARC and all of its wonders. Seeing people come and go through the anomalies. Seeing horrifying creatures from different times. "Excited," she finally said.

West made an 'hmm' noise. "Do you get along well with all of your teammates?"

"Reasonably," Abby said. She didn't feel like elaborating on anything for him.

"Connor lives with you, doesn't he??"

"Yes," Abby said. She had to admit that Connor was annoying at first. She was beyond frustrated when he had imposed himself on her, while swearing that he'd only stay for a few weeks. Now, she missed having him there whenever he was out. She even missed the way he left his underwear on the floor when he had gone to visit friends for a few days. Plus, there was something about him. He made her smile with his ridiculous antics. If it was anybody else, she would have thought she had a crush on him, but he was nothing like her usual taste in men. He was nice, sweet and ultimately clueless.

"Surely that might create some difficulties in the team? Having such a … relationship with the one of the team members?"

Abby's head shot up, startled. "I am not having a relationship with Connor!" she exclaimed.

"Certainly," West said. "If you say so."

"It's true. Connor and I are not having a relationship. We never had a relationship. We're just friends."

"What about your relationship with Jennifer Lewis?"

Abby hesitated. She liked Jenny. Or at least, she wanted to like Jenny. She knew that Jenny was a lovely person, or seemed like a lovely person. But she felt like she had nothing in common with the other woman. Jenny was always so ridiculously over-dressed for the field although, Abby had to admit that she pulled it off quite well. "She's nice."

"So you would call yourself friends?"

"Y… yes," she said. "We're friends." Abby really wasn't getting the point of this psychological examination. The guy hadn't even asked any questions about her parents yet. She thought all psychological examinations required questions about one's mother.

Sighing, she sat back in her chair.

By the time Connor was also out of his psychological examination, Abby was pacing around the tiny waiting room. "Finally!" she exclaimed as Connor walked in. "How was yours?"

He shrugged. "He just asked a bunch of questions about the team and what I felt about the Anomaly Project."

She nodded. "Same." She gave him a wry smile. "So do you think that we're insane?"

Connor took a look at his watch. "Almost time," he said. "I don't feel insane, but isn't that always the case?"

"Huh," she said. "So if I felt insane, then I wouldn't be insane? I feel this situation's insane. Does that count?" She felt the beginnings of a headache and reached up to rub her temples.

"Possibly." Connor grinned at her.

Just then, the bright light enveloped them.

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby swung her legs out of bed and yawned. She was beginning to feel really tired. Technically she'd been almost five days now without sleep, although theoretically, she thought, her body should have got the sleep. She walked over to Connor's room, knocked on the door and entered.

"I'm not going through that again," she said without waiting for Connor to say anything. "I don't care. I'm not having that West guy shrink my head again. And I think I'm going to smack Richardson next time I see him"

To her surprise, he nodded. "The guy's a total idiot."

Abby looked down at her hands. "I can't…" she said, her voice cracking a little. "I can't do this any more."

Connor got up and sat down beside her. He slung an arm over her shoulder. "You can. We have to. Who knows what this loop might be doing to the world…" He trailed off and patted her hand awkwardly.

Abby hesitated but then reached across to clasp Connor's hand. His hand was slightly sweaty and warm. "Well, we haven't seen any major effects yet," she said. "No explosions or anything." Her attempt at humour hung heavily in the air.

Abby sat at her desk at work and doodled little dinosaurs on her paperwork. She didn't want to write out the same explanation day after day. There wasn't a point to it. It wasn't as though it was ever going to be used.

Jenny came by just before lunch and sat down. Hurriedly, Abby turned over her paperwork. "I'm almost done," she said.

"You look really tired," Jenny said, looking concerned. She looked hesitant for a minute. "Come out with me for lunch. I know this lovely little café just a few blocks away."

Abby thought about it. It wasn't as though she was going to fix the time loop by sitting here and moping. Besides, she felt somewhat guilty after the whole discussion with Richardson. She really should try to get to know Jenny better. "Sure," she said with a smile. Besides, she wanted to skip the 2 pm anomaly. She was sick of either running around with a gun or having somebody tell her about it. It wasn't as though anything she did would actually change anything. Even if she managed to save Connor, he might die the next time around. Same went for everybody else. "A late lunch sounds perfect," Abby added.

"Try the Kilpatrick Oysters," Jenny suggested as they looked over the menu.

Abby wrinkled her nose. "That's when they put bacon and stuff in there, right?"

Jenny nodded. "Not a fan?"

Abby shook her head. She liked oysters and bacon but somehow she didn't think they made a good combination. She was really glad she had decided to come out though. Jenny was obviously concerned about her, but despite all that, she'd discovered that Jenny was a really good companion. The woman seemed capable of silence, which was really rare. Abby really hated women who tended to babble whenever they had nothing to talk about and she had thought that Jenny might have been one of those types.

"This is a nice place," Abby said as she tasted her salad.

Jenny smiled. "I used to come here with my fia… ex-fiancé."

"What happened?" Abby had heard rumours but she wasn't sure of the story and she had always been curious.

Jenny shrugged. "You know. He got jealous of the dinosaurs."

Abby gave a surprised laugh. "You know," she said, when it became obvious that Jenny wasn't going to share anything else, "I always thought that you and Cutter…"

"He is cute," Jenny said, "but he keeps on calling me Claudia. That kind of thing really does tend to put me off."

"Yeah," Abby said. "I haven't a clue why he does that."

They lapsed into a companionable silence.

Abby stared at her paperwork.

Why Jenny Lewis and Nick Cutter should get together, she wrote.

They obviously have chemistry. Cutter stares at her whenever he thinks nobody is looking. Jenny blushes whenever he compliments her in his awkward way.

Why Jenny Lewis and Nick Cutter shouldn't get together, she added.

He keeps on calling her Claudia and thinks that she's a totally different person.

This is going to get me fired, she thought, but really couldn't find it in herself to care. Even if she was fired, it wasn't as though it was going to last more than half a day at the most anyway. The next time she woke up, she was going to be in bed and it was going to be Tuesday morning again.

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby took one look at the clock, got up, pulled on a robe and stumbled down the stairs. Connor was already on the couch.

She slumped on the couch next to him. "I refuse to do this anymore," Abby snapped. She reached over and poured herself a gin and tonic. Tossing a wedge of lime in it, she drank it down.

She half expected Connor to stop her but when she looked over, he was drinking his own beer. "I give up too," he said.

Abby frowned. She didn't think she had ever heard him sounding so despondent. Usually Connor was chipper, excited and happy. He was the one who had kept her spirits up during the past … well, she had lost track of how many Tuesdays there had been so far. She sipped her drink. Now that Connor was like this, she felt like the rug had been pulled out from beneath her feet. He was always so cheerful and now that he was acting this way, she felt almost lost. It was almost like her Connor had been replaced by a new and harder Connor and she didn't like the replacement.

Both their phones rang. Abby ignored it, but Connor picked his up.

"Yes? I'm sorry, we're both sick. No. I'm sorry." He hung up.

"Work?" Abby asked morosely.

Connor nodded and took another swig of his beer. Abby wrinkled her nose to see that he hadn't shaved that morning. She suspected that if they weren't repeating the same day over and over again, then he would have had more than a day of beard growth. Then again, if they hadn't been repeating the same day over and over again, Connor wouldn't be like this. She wouldn't be like this.

Abby sighed and took another large sip of her drink. It burned as it slid down her throat and she slumped back into the soft sofa cushions. Connor – silent for once – stayed next to her.

She concentrated on the light from the sunbeams on the floor through the parted curtains. They had moved partway across the floor when there came a sudden knock on the door.

They looked at each other and, with a sigh, Abby got up to open it. She looked down at what she was wearing. A bright green t-shirt and knickers. She decided she didn't really care who saw her in this condition. They would only forget again tomorrow. Opening the door, she couldn't help but flush red when she realized that Cutter and Jenny were standing outside.

Jenny raised an eyebrow as she looked her up and down. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Do you think I look okay?" she snapped.

Jenny looked taken aback. "Can we come in?" Abby couldn't help but notice that she was impeccably dressed in the exact same outfit she had been wearing for all the other Tuesdays. It simply drove home the fact that nothing was changing in this damnable day, which only served to make her feel more depressed.

"Sure," Abby muttered and stepped aside. She went and sat back down in next to Connor on the couch, watching as Cutter surveyed the room with a raised eyebrow.

"You don't look sick," Cutter finally said, gruffly.

Abby shrugged. "Well," she said, "we are." A part of her realized that she was being quite rude but she justified it to herself. It wasn't as though they would actually remember this tomorrow. She deserved to take this day off. Both she and Connor could go into work at the ARC tomorrow as if nothing had ever happened and nobody would be the wiser. That is, she thought suddenly, unless the loop somehow ended right now. After a few moments of thought, Abby decided that she didn't care if the time loop ended right then. Even if she ended up losing her job it would be worth it in order to not go through the same Tuesday again. And to have a sleep in. She was getting really sick of hearing that alarm clock. And she couldn't go back to Monday and stop herself from setting it. Abby suspected that she might enjoy the Tuesday more if she wasn't woken up every single time at 7 am.

With a sigh, she tore herself away from her thoughts and reached over to pour herself another gin and tonic. "Would either of you guys like a drink?"

Jenny looked concerned. "Isn't it a bit early for alcohol?"

"I've had a long day." Connor also grunted his assent.

Jenny looked at her watch. "It's only 11:30 am!"

"Exactly." Abby didn't care that she was being cryptic. In fact, she decided, she didn't damn well care about anything this time round. She was sick and tired of going into the ARC every morning and pretending that everything was alright and that stupid dinosaurs weren't going to come into the ARC from some anomaly at around 2 pm and that they weren't going to be transported back to Tuesday morning after the second anomaly. "In fact," Abby said, getting into the whole spirit of things, "I quit!" A part of her, irrationally wondered if this would be the action that would stop the time loop.

Even Connor looked at her, shocked. "You don't mean it, Abby, do you?"

"I know how much you love this job," Cutter said.

"Well not anymore," Abby said stubbornly. "Lately, it's been repetitive." She couldn't suppress an insane giggle that escaped her.

Both Cutter and Jenny looked at her incredulously while the light of understanding dawned in Connor's eyes. "In that case," Connor said casually. "I quit as well."

"You two are being ridiculous," Jenny said wearily, while Cutter looked worried.

"Perhaps something came through the last anomaly with the crocodile?" he said. "It might have affected them?" He shook his head and looked at Abby and Connor. "You two both love your jobs. It's inconceivable that you would quit!"

"I don't think that word means what you think it means," Connor said.

Abby cracked a smile for the first time in days. "I love that movie."

"We should get you in to see Doctor Richardson," Jenny said decisively. She was already pulling out her mobile.

"No!" Abby exclaimed. "That man is a complete twat."

Jenny frowned. "I didn't think you knew the man personally. In any case, Doctor Richardson is a very professional man. If there is anything wrong with you two at all, he will be the man to figure it out."

"No." Abby was adamant.

"I don't planning on moving from this couch," Connor said while taking another swig of his beer. "Are you sure you guys don't want a drink? It's quite nice to just relax here."

"Ah," Jenny said, while Cutter was silent, "you guys are just stressed." She turned to Cutter. "Perhaps we should leave them alone for a day. Surely they'll be okay tomorrow?"

"Sure," Abby said tiredly. It wasn't as though it mattered what she promised. She could go skiing in the Swiss fucking Alps tomorrow if it didn't take too long to get there. Nothing she did would affect the future. Not anymore.

Cutter still looked unsure but he stood up anyway. "If you start feeling any symptoms of anything then call in and see Richardson. We're all really worried."

Abby waved a hand at them while Connor grunted. "We'll be fine."

Jenny stood up and then hesitantly came over to Abby and hugged her. After a pause, Abby hugged her back. "Look, if you ever need to talk…" she said quietly.

"I'll come to you," Abby said, surprised. Ever since the time loops had begun, Jenny had constantly been surprising her. If it weren't for the loops, she suspected, she might become friends with Jenny. Possibly.

With a sigh, Abby closed the door behind Cutter and Jenny. She walked back to the couch and sat back down, eyeing the gin bottle.

"Want another?" Connor offered.

She nodded and watched as he prepared yet another drink for her.

Four hours and twelve drinks later, Abby half-sat, half-lay across the couch, slumped across Connor. The phone had been ringing non-stop for the past two hours, so she had simply unplugged it. It wasn't as though they didn't know what the news was going to be. Dinosaurs in the ARC. Some people dead. Same old news, really.

"It's like this," she explained, gesturing with her hands, "I always end up dating the wrong men." She looked at him. With effort, she concentrated until the two Connors coalesced into one. "You know how I liked Stephen a few months ago?"

He nodded.

"Well, I always fall for men like that. Unavailable men. Men with girlfriends. Emotionally unavailable men. And then my favourite? Guess what that was?"

She stared at Connor until he said, "What?"

"I fell in love with a guy in Siberia that I met online." She snorted and drank down the rest of her drink. "He turned out to have not one but two wives. One in the US and one in Siberia."

"Ouch," Connor said.

"Yeah," Abby said morosely. She picked at the lime in her drink. "So what about you?"

Connor let out a bitter laugh. "I think you know what kind of women I fall for," he said. "A confident woman smiles at me and I'm gone. I think you've seen the result of that."

Abby bit her lip. Wasn't she confident? Of course, she wasn't terribly confident right now, but wasn't she usually confident? A month back, she thought that Connor had liked her. He said that he loved her, for cripes sake. But then since then, he had said nothing. She supposed she could make the first move. It wasn't as though she hadn't done that before, but Connor was different. For one thing, he already lived with her. It would be awkward, to say the least, if it didn't turn out well. She let out a sharp laugh. Not very confident, Abby, she thought to herself.

"Are you okay?" Connor said.

"Fine, fine," she said abruptly. "I think I'm just coming off this." She waved her drink.

"Another?" Connor offered.

She nodded.

Beep-beep-beep.

With frustration, Abby slammed her fist into the alarm clock and heard it crumple with satisfaction. Her fist was throbbing but it was worth it. She was fucking sick of the beeping sound in the morning.

When Connor came into her room three hours later, she was still lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

"Did you know," she said, "that there are exactly three hundred and six stars on my ceiling."

It only took her ten more Tuesdays to end up on the ledge. She had walked into the closest building that seemed to be tall enough. It happened to be a hotel. She booked a room with Connor trailing, as always these days, in her wake.

"Fuck," she muttered to herself as she stood there clinging to the outside of the balcony railing. The wind whipped at her hair, sending strands of it into her eyes.

"What are you doing?" Connor asked tiredly from inside the hotel room.

"Trying to end the loop," she said. It made so much sense when she had thought it out that morning, but now, as she was standing here, it made far less sense.

"You're killing yourself," Connor pointed out. She was slightly amused to notice that he wasn't holding onto her or anything. It was almost as if he thought that what she was trying to do might work. It was as though he wanted her to jump. The thought simultaneously depressed and exhilarated her.

"You want this to end as much as I want it to," she said. "If…" she hesitated, "if my death brings that then it's better for you."

He made a snorting sound. "I don't want you dead though."

"Can you deal with doing this Tuesday, over and over again, for eternity?" she argued.

He was silent.

Abby took a deep breath. If this worked then she would be dead. Abby Maitland would be dead. She wasn't sure whether she believed in an afterlife, but now that she was on the ledge, looking out into the sparkling city, she hoped that there was a heaven and there was a God and that he would forgive her. "Look after Rex for me," she said. Connor made a noise, but she wasn't sure whether it was a noise of protest or assent.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

She laughed wildly. "Of course not."

"Remember, I died once," he pointed out. "It did nothing."

The wind whipped her hair in her eyes as she turned her head. "I realised the loop first," she insisted. "It has to be me." Abby hesitated. "If I end up actually dead... I'm sorry."

She saw Connor reach for her arm, but let go before he could grab onto her. She felt the ground rush up towards her and then...

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby padded over silently to Connor's room and sat down on his duvet. "Well," she said, "I believe we've established that the death of one of us will reset the timeline."

Connor was sitting on the edge of his bed, breathing hard. "Uh," he said, "not really. I spent all of yesterday afternoon at the police station, answering questions. Why didn't I stop you? Why did you jump? Cutter punched me on the nose." He fingered his nose tenderly.

Abby felt a lump in her throat. "I'm so sorry, Connor," she said softly. "I didn't mean it. But I really had to try. What if it had ended the loop?"

Connor looked at her. "Is this time loop so bad?" he asked. "Why should we end it? Why can't we just… go on a holiday? Or rent a different movie each day."

She twisted a loop of hair in her fingers. "I couldn't live my life like that." She laughed slightly. "What if we're aging? It's been… what… a hundred Tuesdays now? What happens after a thousand? Will we have aged three years?"

He just looked at her. "But we'll still have each other."

Abby jumped up. "It's not enough!" She stormed out of the room, ignoring the hurt expression on Connor's face.

Abby stormed downstairs, barricaded the door and threw her mobile phone out of the window. "I'm not dealing with this today," she told Connor when he came downstairs.

He shrugged and walked over to the couch. "Fair enough."

Abby ended up spending the entire day with a tub of ice-cream in her hands, pacing around their place. "Why us?" she snapped, in the afternoon as she drank melted ice-cream through a straw.

Connor looked over. "You'll give yourself a stomach-ache," he said mildly.

Abby looked at the clock. "Only for another hour," she pointed out. "I killed myself yesterday. It did nothing. I doubt a stomach-ache would stop this thing." She pointedly took another sip of the ice-cream ignoring the churning sensation in her stomach.

Connor snorted. "In that case, can I have some?"

Abby walked over and handed him the tub of ice-cream. She barely suppressed a smile as she watched Connor sip the ice-cream delicately. "You're adorable," she said and then clapped her hand over her mouth. That hadn't meant to slip out!

He grinned at her. "Aren't I?"

She returned his grin tentatively.

"What if we somehow caused this time loop," Abby mused one afternoon. Outside her locked office, she could hear the screams of people running down the corridors as the dinosaurs chased them.

Connor stared at her, raising an eyebrow. "By going out to see that mysterious anomaly that sucked us in, you mean?"

She shook her head. She had been thinking of this idea for a few loops now. It seemed plausible. Well no more implausible than the whole idea of anomalies anyway. She still remembered Cutter's rant at the beginning regarding the ripping apart of space and time, or something along those lines. "No," she said. "I was thinking that…" she hesitated. "I was thinking that maybe, just possibly…"

"Spit it out," Connor said.

Abby was annoyed to feel a blush creeping up her face. "It's going to sound ridiculous," she warned.

Connor waved his hand around. "Can it be any less ridiculous than this whole situation? We're in a time loop!" There was a sudden noise from outside the office and a splatter of blood appeared on her window. Abby looked up and could see a face being squished up against the glass, his mouth open in a scream.

She nodded. "Okay, then. Well, what if we somehow caused it by not revealing the idea of the anomalies to the general public?"

Connor just looked at her.

"It's not that stupid!" she protested.

"Uh huh," Connor said. "You're talking like, I don't know, the anomalies are sentient or something."

"We don't understand anything about the anomalies," she pointed out. "How'd you know they're not?"

Connor was silent. She could tell that he was puzzling over what she said. She knew that it sounded stupid, but it was possible. The movie Groundhog Day proved that it was possible! And even if that was only a movie, surely anything was worth a try, even that. A part of her mind wondered if she and Connor were suffering from sleep deprivation or something.

"Okay," he said finally. "What'd you want to do to fix it?"

This was probably the dumbest idea they had ever come up with, Abby thought as they walked into the offices of the BBC. In her hands, she held copies of all the information they had managed to scrimp up at the last minute on the anomalies. Connor had Rex in a cage.

The woman at the reception desk stared at them through thick, dark eyelashes. "Yes?" she asked in a bored drawl.

"We have a story for you," Abby blurted out.

The woman raised one perfectly manicured eyebrow and looked Abby up and down.

Abby suddenly was aware of her tracksuit pants, her slightly dirty t-shirt and the smell of alcohol that was probably emanating from her breath. "We have a story," she repeated.

The woman reached over and lifted up the phone that was across the table. "Security," she said. "I have two… people here."

Abby glared at her. She hated people like that. In fact, it was part of the reason why she had been apprehensive when Jenny had joined their team. Jenny reminded her of those superior women who was always dressed perfectly and who looked down their perfectly powdered nose at other women who didn't wear dresses and heels. "Connor," she snapped. "Show Rex."

Without a word, Connor opened up the travelling container that they had put Rex in.

The receptionist gaped at them and without another word, she slammed down the phone. "What the hell is that thing?"

Abby smirked at her.

They were ushered through the door of a senior reporter at the BBC. The grey-haired man stared at them from where he was seated at his leather covered desk. "You're trying to tell me that you have some sort of dinosaur with you?" he said, finally.

Abby held Rex up. "This is Rex. And actually he's a Coelurosauravus from the Permian era. Not a dinosaur."

The man obviously ignored her. "And you're trying to say that these dinosaurs come through these … anomalies? And are attacking people? And that our government, the British government is covering this up?"

"Got it in one!"

Abby glared at Connor. He didn't need to sound so cheerful.

The man stared at them. "What sort of fool do you take me for?"

"Excuse me?" Abby said. She really didn't think that they would have so much trouble. After all, they had Rex. She would have thought that any idiot would be able to tell that he wasn't from the modern era. Plus, they had all of their notes and heaps of information on the whole Anomaly Project. "We have all this evidence."

"Obviously fabricated," the man said with a snort. "We're not like your average tabloid, missy. We don't accept idiotic stories like this. Maybe you should try one of those trashy newspapers or magazines."

"It's not fabricated," Connor snapped. "This is all true. You could ring this number."

The man held up a piece of paper. "The number you gave me?" He punched the number into his phone and held it against his ear for half a minute. "Hmm. Uh huh. Sorry for disturbing you, madam." He hung up. "It's the National Grains Board."

"Well of course it is!" Abby said. "That's the cover for the ARC."

He raised his eyebrow at her. "You should be writing detective stories, missy. Or espionage stories like that American Ludlum fellow. All this talk about conspiracies and government secrets."

Abby couldn't help but roll her eyes as they were ushered out of the BBC building.

"Any more bright ideas?" she asked Connor. He bounced Rex's cage thoughtfully, and Rex chirruped reproachfully as he tried to maintain his balance.

"We could always try ITV," he said.

Abby snorted. "As if."

"I don't know why we didn't do this sooner," Abby said as she lifted her wine glass and downed the dregs. She toyed with the stem of the glass. Should she pour herself another glass? They were just out for lunch. It wouldn't exactly be becoming of her if she was going to act like a drunk. Of course, she had spent the last week of Tuesdays drunk, but that was totally beside the point. Jenny didn't know about the time loop and Abby was sick of trying to explain it to people. She was also rather tired of being sent to Richardson. That man was really a wanker.

Jenny's mouth quirked into a small smile. "I always had the impression that you didn't like me." She reached up one elegant hand and smoothed down her hair.

"I didn't know you," Abby admitted. "I like you now though," she offered.

Jenny raised an eyebrow. "I could have sworn that yesterday you didn't know anything about me. You always were rather cold to me. Yet, today, you've been so nice. You even invited me out to lunch." She waved her hand around. "It's a really nice café, by the way."

Abby hid a smile. She had to admit that she really liked how much she got to know people during this time loop. It was really interesting. She figured she would get to know Lester next. She really didn't know much about any of her colleagues except Connor. He was a darling – she had to admit now that she had a bit of a crush on him – but she wanted to know everybody else as well. And now she had all the time in the world to get to know them! "Yeah," she said, "I've always liked this place."

Jenny spooned a mouthful of salad into her mouth and looked over at Abby's steak. "I always admire a woman who can eat steak and still stay as thin as you."

Abby blushed. "I'm not thin," she said with a sigh. "My figure just is a bit boyish." This hadn't bothered her much as a child, but as she grew up, she realized that skirts just didn't suit her. A previous boyfriend had once commented on her dress code and how it made her seem like one of the guys. Abby had been horribly offended. She liked how she dressed, damn it. She definitely wasn't going to change because of anybody, but it didn't mean that the comment didn't hurt.

Jenny narrowed her eyes and scrutinized her. "I don't think so," she said finally. "You're gorgeous."

"But?" Abby prompted. "All I need is a little less makeup? A skirt? A pair of boots? Heels?"

To Abby's complete and utter surprise, Jenny leaned in and pressed a kiss on her cheek. "You're gorgeous just as you are."

Abby excused herself after lunch and went home where Connor was. He had called in sick that morning. She was a bit surprised at the bounce in her step. She was really looking forward to telling Connor that Jenny – Jenny Lewis of all people! – had kissed her. On the cheek, mind you, but it was still really surprising.

"Connor!" she called as soon as she had entered the lounge room.

He looked up from the couch. "You're cheerful today."

Abby ignored his rather grumpy tone. "I just had the most interesting lunch with Jenny," she said happily.

"Best friends, all of a sudden, aren't you?"

She glared at him. "What's suddenly got stuck in your craw?" she demanded, her good mood evaporating like a mist on a sunny morning.

"Let's see," Connor said, standing up and holding out his fingers, "we're stuck in a time loop. And we're stuck in a time loop. And did I mention that we were s tuck in a time loop?"

Abby couldn't disagree with that. "Didn't we say that we'd try to make the best of it?"

"You said that," he grumbled. "Anyway, what's happened to make you so happy?"

Abby couldn't help a gleeful grin. "Jenny kissed me."

She really couldn't have predicted Connor's reaction. He froze in the middle of sitting back down again and then slowly straightened back up. He turned his head to look in her direction. "She did what?"

"Kissed me," she repeated. "I thought it was …amusing."

"I would have thought good would describe your mood better," Connor said, his words slurring. "You were practically bouncing when you came in the door. This was the first time you seemed happy since the time loops began." He stumbled slightly as he tried to walk towards her

"It was just on the cheek," Abby protested. She really wasn't getting why Connor was behaving so ridiculously.

"That explains the smile that's still on your face," he snapped. He walked closer to her until she could smell the alcohol on his breath. It absolutely reeked and Abby wondered how much he'd had since she left that morning. "Did you enjoy it?"

"What?" Abby demanded. "Did I enjoy her kissing me on the cheek?"

"Yes!"

"It was okay," she said, with a frown. "It was just a kiss. Come on, why are you so cut up about this? And how much have you had to drink?"

"Not enough," he said brusquely and turned away.

Abby grabbed his arm. "Then why are you acting so ridiculously?" she snapped, wanting to shake him. "This isn't like you at all, Connor!"

"Ridiculously?" Connor hissed. He took another step towards her and Abby found herself pressed up against the wall. She could feel his breath hot against her face and the smell of alcohol – even with the few drinks she had at lunch – was overpowering.

Abby grabbed his arm and twisted it. She heard Connor gasp in pain and let go. "Sorry," she said, "but you deserved that." He slumped down onto the floor, still doubled over. She knelt down and put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay? That move wasn't designed to hurt... that much."

"I'm fine," he said abruptly, standing up. He looked up at her. "I ... think I'm going to be sick."

She scooted back just in time as he heaved all over the floor. Looking down, she felt slightly nauseous herself and was glad that at least the time loop meant that the floor was going to be clean again tomorrow. She didn't think either of them was in a state to clean it at the moment.

"Sorry, Abby," Connor slurred.

She rolled her eyes. "Just don't do it again, dolt," she said as she dragged him up. "Come on, you're spending the rest of this loop in bed."

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby woke up the next morning with the beginnings of a headache. She stretched and stumbled out of bed. "Connor?" she called, but there was no response. She frowned. Perhaps he was somewhere off being horrified at his behaviour the previous day. It would serve him right.

A sudden sound from the bathroom made her spin around. "Connor?" she said again as she entered the bathroom. "I'm sorry if you're naked in here but..." She stopped in her tracks.

Connor was in the bathtub. He was possibly naked, she couldn't tell, but more importantly, the bathwater around him was soaked red with his blood. He looked up at her blearily. "I'm sorry, Abby," he gasped. "I had to try."

She grabbed a towel from the rack and ran over to kneel down by the bathtub. "You stupid, stupid, stupid man," she muttered as she pulled him up to examine his wrists. "We've already tried this! It didn't work!"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "You tried it," he muttered.

She swallowed to keep down a bubble of hysterical laughter. "But you already died once," she found herself babbling. "You were bitten by a dinosaur, remember? It didn't fix anything."

Connor's eyes closed and she found him slipping down into the bath. "Still had to try," he mumbled.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid." Abby tried to lever his body out of the way so she could unplug the bath, but she found him too heavy. She pressed the towel on his wrists, but it just got soaked by the red bathwater and she couldn't tell whether it was absorbing the water or his blood anymore. "Don't die, Connor," she gasped.

His eyes fluttered open for a second. "Sorry."

Abby felt for a pulse, but there was none. She slumped down and began to sob. She was still there by the time Cutter and Jenny came around.

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby sat bolt upright in her bed. Swinging her legs over the side, she stood up and stalked over to Connor's room and threw open the door. "I told you that wouldn't work," she snapped angrily. "How could you even think of trying?" Tears blurred her eyes as she punched the duvet.

"You did," Connor pointed out.

Abby clenched her hands into fists, her nails biting into the soft skin of her palm. "This is twice now that I've lost you," she whispered. "I don't want ..." She stopped. "I don't want to lose you again."

"But you won't," Connor said quietly. "That's the whole point. Whatever we do, the timeline just resets and everybody forgets."

"Except us," Abby said morosely. "We remember and it's tearing us apart."

Connor didn't reply but it was apparent from his expression that his emotions felt as brittle as hers. She still remembered Connor's reaction after she had come back from lunch with Jenny the second time. Or was it the third time? She couldn't keep track any more. She couldn't seem to keep track of anything anymore and she suspected Connor felt the same way. Most days, they weren't going to work. It was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up a normal facade when they had experienced so many Tuesdays. Everything was fragmenting around them.

She sat down on the ground with a thump.

"I'm sorry," Connor said abruptly. "For everything."

Abby glanced up at him. "Just don't do it again," she said flatly. The tone in her voice was clear and from the look in Connor's eyes, he understood the double meaning behind what she said. She pulled herself up and sat on the edge of his bed, resting her hand on his forearm.

They were driving in the countryside, greenery flying past them. Abby wasn't even sure where they were going any more. She had simply woken up this morning and decided that they could go somewhere, anywhere out of London. Connor had agreed and they'd both thrown their mobile phones in a nearby rubbish bin. The ARC could deal with their absence. In any case, the ARC wouldn't be able to remember it tomorrow anyway.

"D'you have any idea where we are?"

Connor shook his head as he looked her way. "Nope, no clue."

"Be careful," Abby said as their car swerved slightly on the road. The people in the car behind them beeped their horn angrily at them. She paused. "Then again..." she said, trailing off.

"It's not as though there would be any lasting damage," Connor agreed. "To us or anybody else. We'd just all wake up in the same positions we were in this morning. No harm, no foul."

"Still," Abby said, "be careful."

Connor snorted as he put both hands back on the wheel.

Abby had always wanted to take up an art class when she was a child. She didn't really have any particular skill in the area, but she had always wanted to create beautiful sculptures and vases. Now that they were in a time loop, she thought, it was the perfect time to learn.

The first time, her vase fell apart after ten seconds of her trying to form it on the spinning wheel.

The second time, she managed to get something that looked remotely like a lumpy vase.

By the twentieth Tuesday, Abby found that she could form beautiful vases. They were using a special type of clay that didn't need a kiln so she was allowed to take her vase home on the caveat that she was careful with it. It was with a grin that she gave the vase to Connor. "Much better than my previous attempts, yeah?" she said.

Connor nodded as he kicked her punching bag. "I think I'm getting the hang of this kicking thing, too," he said. "I'm not falling over nearly as much."

Beep-beep-beep.

Abby was washing her hair in the shower. This process was taking her longer and longer nowadays, but it was one of the few things keeping her sane. She liked the feeling of slathering on conditioner and letting it sit in her hair for over ten minutes. The honey smell of her soap allowed her to drift away to a better place.

Suddenly, the door to the bathroom opened.

"Connor!" she exclaimed, grabbing the shower curtain and wrapping it around herself. "Knock, will you?"

Connor waved a dismissive hand. "Sorry, sorry, but I've worked it out! We need to go through the first anomaly!" he burst out.

Abby stared at him. "What?" she said, feeling slightly dazed as the water still pounded down around her. "You mean the dinosaur one?"

"Yeah," Connor said, nodding enthusiastically. "Then, we need to find an anomaly that gets us back into the future, but before when our past selves get sucked into the second anomaly."

Abby could feel the beginnings of a headache emerging. "But," she protested, "aren't we already in a time loop?" she argued. "How do you know that doing that will get us back to the first time when we got sucked into the second anomaly? It might just get us to 6pm today, or something."

Connor looked deflated for a second before brightening again. "We haven't tried escaping the anomalies by going through time," he pointed out. "This'll work, I'm sure of it!"

She sighed. It wasn't as though she had any better plans. In fact, they had run out of every other plan. "Sure," she agreed. "Why not? A little change of scenery would be lovely."

They both waited in the rec room on the second floor just before 2pm. Connor had packed them both supplies to last for several days (just in case, he had argued) and Abby had managed to secure them both guns and ammunition.

The anomaly appeared just on time.

Abby took a deep breath and looked over at Connor who was by the door. "Here goes nothing," she said as she stepped through it.

"Well," Abby said, looking around at the landscape, "this is certainly a change." She could see a herd of what she hoped were herbivores in a nearby clearing. Something felt different about the air. She sniffed and then suddenly realized that there was no smell of modernity, no pollution, no fast food, nothing that reminded her of the 21st century. She wrinkled her nose. She could smell dung though. That was rather disgusting.

Connor emerged from the anomaly behind her, panting slightly.

She frowned at him. "You didn't decide to run through it, did you?"

He shrugged. "Lester would have caught me otherwise. He was just around the corner."

Abby stared around the alien landscape again. "So, where do we go?" she finally said, after a short pause. She wasn't sure where to start looking but this idea of Connor's seemed like a better idea than just sitting in their apartment and drinking beer.

"I don't know," Connor replied, biting his lip.

They had been trudging across squishy mud for over an hour now and it showed no sign of stopping. "You'd think the ARC would have become muddier," Abby snapped as she almost tripped over for the tenth time in half an hour. "What with all these dinosaurs from this horrible, muddy, place!"

Connor shook his head. "You're beginning to complain."

Abby glared at him. "I'm allowed to complain! You complained for two whole weeks. Heck, you were drunk for two whole weeks."

"And a very fun two weeks it was," Connor said mildly. "And if I'm not mistaken, you tried to kill yourself."

She couldn't help but throw something at him. Unfortunately it was a leaf that she had just picked off a tree and it was not aerodynamic at all. It floated down to the ground. "So did you," she snapped.

He snickered.

"Oh shut up," Abby ground out through gritted teeth. It seemed their plan to go through the dinosaur anomaly was definitely not going according to plan.

It was Connor who first spotted the flash in the distance. "Hey," he said hoarsely. They were both parched from forgetting to bring water this loop. It wasn't as though either of them could die, but Abby could have kicked Connor for packing beef sandwiches but not a single flask of water. "What is that?"

She squinted and shielded her eyes from the sun. "It looks like it could be glass. Or metal."

They hurried towards the object. Abby desperately looked around for any source of water, but she couldn't find any. It was ridiculous. They had only been here for less than three hours, but she was already parched. There was no shade whatsoever where they had landed. Only a few big rocks in the distance and whatever that shiny object seemed to be that was under it.

As they neared the shiny object, Abby began to make out other objects beside. "It seems to be a camp," she said.

They started running towards it. "Water!" Connor gasped as they got there. He grabbed the water bottle and drank deeply. Abby watched as he suddenly made a face and spat half of the water out. "It's obviously been sitting here a while," he said and handed the water bottle to Abby.

She unscrewed the lid and peered inside. It looked okay, but was very warm and smelled slightly metallic. She took a mouthful and swallowed. "Ick," she muttered.

Connor was rifling through the campsite. "This seemed to be Helen's," he said as he held up a compass with the words H.C. etched on it.

"That woman's been everywhere," Abby said as she started looking through the campsite as well. "But she's not here. And we were trying to look for her to see if she could help us!"

Connor made a triumphant noise. She looked over and he was holding a small notebook. "These seem to be her notes on the anomaly!"

Abby's eyes widened. "That's fantastic."

Connor opened it and started reading:

"To the best of my knowledge, these anomalies – these bizarre unnatural rips in space and time – were created in the future. Our distant descendents tried to search for a method to travel back and forward in time."

Abby frowned. "The anomalies don't seem to be that great for that. They're not predictable at all!"

"Shh," Connor said and continued reading:

"They attempted to establish a stable way of travelling back and forth in time, but instead, one scientist created rips in space and time that spread out and rippled back and forth through history until they created the anomalies. These anomalies can be found in every single time period throughout history and tend to be found on fault lines, both physical and temporal."

Connor turned a page. "This seems to be a different entry," he commented.

"I have just found a time period, I'm not sure when, but it contains thousands if not millions of anomalies. It seems to be some sort of Anomaly Hub. It is worth exploring."

He flipped another page.

"I have just ended up in the future. They have methods of controlling the anomalies, somewhat. When pointing this watch they gave me towards the anomaly in question, one can find out what era the anomaly leads to. This is a superb discovery."

Connor frowned as he looked at the next page.

"I have just discovered something about the anomalies. They have side-effects that might endanger humanity." He pulled out a piece of paper. "This seems to be a letter."

Abby took the letter and started reading slowly.

"My love,

"I've failed. I wanted so much to save you. I tried everything I could. And my failure has come at such a high price.

"I wanted to go back to a perfect moment in our lives. A time when we were both young and very much in love and thought that nothing could break us. Do you remember? We were both so young, so vital, so healthy. We could have run a marathon, but of course, we didn't. I remember how your flame red hair streamed behind you as you jogged laughing down the beach.

"It twists my heart to think of it now. To think of you as you were, rather than the ravaged figure in the hospital bed.

"I wanted to go back to find you and to stop the accident. I told myself that all I needed was to create a time machine. You always told me how brilliant I was, how much I would succeed at life and for the first time in my life, I believed you.

"More fool, I.

"The universe is disintegrating now and it's all my fault.

"Time is succumbing to entropy.

"You would be amused to notice that your love has become somewhat of a poet in this dire time.

"It'll take a while to ripple through time, but sooner or later…

"I've destroyed everything and all I wanted to do was to save you."

Abby stared at the piece of paper. As a postscript to her translation, Helen had added: "This was the end of the letter. Will attempt to find more information on this disintegration of the universe." Abby couldn't help but feel a sinking feeling in her stomach. Disintegration of the universe? It didn't sound positive. In fact, it sounded quite horrifying.

"Is there anything else?" she asked Connor.

Connor looked down at the small notebook. "That's all," he said.

"Do you think the writer of this letter is right?" Abby asked. "What if there's no way of controlling them? What if there's no way of stopping it?"

Connor put an arm around her and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm sure we can. With this watch," he held up the watch and grinned, "that I found in her belongings, we should be able to find an anomaly that takes us back in time, close enough to stop us from going outside to look at the second anomaly. That's what seemed to cause the time loop, right?"

Abby was unsure but she nodded. What Connor said seemed to make sense.

"Well," he said, "we'd better start looking!"

"It's been weeks," Abby complained as she ran her fingers through her hair. She couldn't help but look down and examine her stomach one more time. She still felt as though there ought to be a hole there from where one dinosaur had gored her the previous time, but the skin was pale and unmarked as always.

Connor grimaced. "I don't care if it takes us years," he snapped. "We're getting out of this time loop."

She glared at him. "You think we're just going to magically stumble across the right anomaly one day."

"Well, Helen seems to have done quite well," he pointed out.

Abby rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and Helen didn't have our disadvantage of waking up in London every morning."

Connor didn't respond and kept on trudging, his boots kicking up little clouds of dust. With a sigh, Abby followed him.

Abby stared at the anomaly in front of them. Beside her, Connor was examining Helen's watch intently. "So, you're sure?" she said, not able to keep the excitement out of her voice. "Positive?" This had to be the anomaly that would get them home, that would fix the time loop.

He nodded, a huge grin spreading over his face. "You first," he said cheerfully, gesturing to the anomaly.

Abby gasped as she stepped through. She hated the feeling of stepping through anomalies. It was like being drenched with a bucketful of ice cold water except she didn't get wet. She turned around and watched as Connor stepped through the anomaly, making a face as he did so.

"What's the time?" he asked.

She took a look at the watch they had taken from Helen's belongings. "Almost 6 pm. Tuesday." She couldn't keep the relief from her voice. "We've made it."

"Not yet," Connor said grimly. "We need to make it to the ARC first."

It was only then Abby took a look at their surroundings. Trees, parkland. Oh shit, she thought. They were at least five kilometres away from the ARC. And they had about half an hour to get there before the anomaly appeared and their past selves were dragged into its vortex. Abby remembered distantly that at this point, they would have been discussing having fudge sundaes.

Taking a deep breath, Abby started jogging in the direction of the ARC. Connor followed behind her.

They got there just in time to see their former selves walk out of the side door of the ARC.

"What?" Abby heard her former self saying, sounding irritable.

"I think there's something there," Connor's former self said, pointing.

"This is weird," Connor whispered in her ear. Abby nodded. It definitely was weird. In fact, she couldn't believe it had worked. It seemed so surreal now that they were here. They were finally going to fix the time loop.

"Well," she said, "it's now or never. We've come so far." She stepped forward in front of their former selves, with Connor right behind her. Without a word, she grabbed her former self on the arm and Connor grabbed his former self and together, they forcibly dragged the other pair inside.

"Who? What?" Abby's former self was saying. "Who are you guys? Why are you doing this?"

"Don't go outside," Abby said grimly. "Just don't. You'll regret it."

Connor's former self glared at her. "How dare you talk to her like that?"

Abby was slightly amused at his protective tone.

"Hey," Connor said. Abby turned her head and saw him examining his hand. "We're… disappearing!"

Abby looked down at her own hands and saw that they were becoming insubstantial. She was having difficulty keeping a hold of her former self's jacket. "The anomaly must've only lasted for a few minutes." She turned to Connor and smiled. "We did it!"

Epilogue

Tuesday, 6: 32 pm

Abby watched as her doppelganger slowly disappeared. Connor's doppelganger was doing the same. Both of their doppelgangers had such happy, relieved expressions that she felt a shiver go down her back.

"Thank god," she said once they'd gone. "That was so weird. Do you think they came out of the anomaly?"

"They must've," Connor said, with a shrug. "I wonder what they wanted." He furrowed his brow.

"Who knows?" Abby spread her hands. "We'll tell the others about it tomorrow. Let's go home." She grinned. Tomorrow. It was a wonderful word.

Connor nodded, his eyes bright.

Tuesday, 7: 00 am

Beep-beep-beep.

As Abby rubbed her eyes, she could hear the sound of Connor singing in the shower, loud and off-key. She groaned. He took a ridiculous long time in the shower. Almost as long as she did, in fact. They were definitely going to be late to work.

Their day at work was reasonably normal until they ended up attacked by dinosaurs in the afternoon. After that, they both decided to take an early evening.

As Abby tumbled into bed that night, she thought over what a normal, and exciting day it was. But then again, she thought, that was life at the ARC.

Tuesday 7: 00 am

Beep-beep-beep

The End

Author Notes: I have to admit I turned this over in my mind several times. I wanted a happy ending, but it just didn't work out that way. Hopefully, the navigation between chapters works okay. I thought over a few possible ways to do it and finally decided this would be best. Also, this was originally for the Primeval Big Bang; however, along the way, I got distracted so it ended up being a lot shorter than it was supposed to be and I ended up spending a ridiculously long time on it. The bulk of this was written over a year ago! *g*

The "golf balls through the anomaly" bit is a reference to Stargate SG-1. *g* I adore the groundhog day episode of SG-1. And the "inconceivable" bit is a reference to The Princess Bride.