Leaving the Nest

Jo returned to her own time with the knowledge that there might be some small changes, but the hope that there wouldn't be any. Of course, she hadn't known about Old Spice, as Carter called him, then. None of them had.

So she'd come back to a strange house full of photographs and memories she didn't recognise. There were photographs of her as a teenager in a ballet leotard right next to her in dress blues on completion of her Ranger training. In each picture she was surrounded by people who seemed to be supporting her regardless of what she did. For one brief, desperate and awful moment, she wished that they had been hers, not her alternate's.

She heard a phone ringing and followed the sound into her bedroom. On her bedside cupboard was a phone she didn't remember buying, but that seemed to be the theme of the day. On the display was the name Tony, but she didn't know anyone by that name. She let it ring until voicemail kicked in. Finally, when it was silent, she picked it up and scrolled through her contacts. There were very few she recognised, besides townsfolk. Her brothers weren't there either.

She scrolled down until she reached a number listed under 'Dad'. It wasn't her father's usual number, but that might be one of the small changes. She pressed the button to call.

"Dad?" she asked.

"Hi, Jo," an unfamiliar, vaguely British voice said. There was a loud metallic clang. "I'm a little busy at the moment, can I call you back in a minute."

"Sure," she forced herself to say.

"Are you alright?" he asked, concerned but still distracted. She heard someone cry out in the background and pulled the phone away from her ear to stare at it as though she could see through it. Who the hell was she calling family these days. There was another sound of metal striking metal.

"I'm fine," she said. "We can talk later."

"If you're sure," he said, a little dubious but not having the time to deal with it at the moment.

"I am," she told him. There was another clang and the sound of someone apologising and pleading. The man said a quick goodbye and disconnected. Jo sat there a moment, staring at her phone before she opened the top drawer of her bedside cupboard, dropped her phone in and slammed the drawer closed. She frowned and pulled it open again, staring at a card depicting the Virgin Mary.

It was old and well-worn, something she, or at least this other version of her, had had for a very long time. Without being entirely sure why, Jo slipped it into her wallet.

...

Jack turned on his police lights when a motorbike sped past him well over the speed limit. Moments later a second one followed. He sped up to keep pace with them, but they far outstripped him with reflexes and stunts that defied human capabilities. Just as he was about to lose them, they pulled over and he pulled up behind them. Cautiously, he climbed out of the car and approached them, hand on the butt of his gun.

"You're letting yourself go, Maybury," one of the men said, pulling his helmet off. His short-cropped blond hair was flattened in places by the helmet, but his smile was charming and irrepressible. He also spoke with a familiarity that made Jack uncomfortable.

So far, the only people they'd encountered since coming back from 1947 had been townsfolk who were mostly the same, even if their personal histories were altered. This was someone he'd never met before and he had no idea how to even begin to act.

"You were 20 over the speed limit," he said, leaning on his law enforcement experience.

"Only 20?" the man said, grin not faltering. Jack was reminded of Zane and just knew this man was trouble personified. He glanced at the other man who still hadn't removed his helmet, but he was watching them impassively. At least Jack assumed it was impassively. He turned back to the first man.

"License and registration," Jack told them pulling out his pad and pen and beginning to write out a ticket.

"Is that really necessary?" the man asked, grin not faltering. Jack gave him a flat look. "Do the photos of that time with the gender-bending ray really need to find their way to Zoe?" he asked.

Jack hesitated, wondering at once if that was true and, if it was, whether he'd really follow through. Given the unrepentant grin, Jack had a feeling the man wouldn't even hesitate.

"Experimental gene therapy, not gender-bending ray," the second man said, finally pulling his helmet off. The first shrugged, unconcerned.

"Oh god," Jack despaired. "There's two of you."

He looked from one identical face to the other. The first man's grin turned smug. The second man's was slightly feral. Like an even more deranged Taggert.

"Careful," the first said. "Your alternate timeline is showing."

Jack felt his jaw drop and struggled a moment to regain his composure.

"Catch you around, Maybury," the first man said. The second simply saluted him and they both put their hemlets back on and rode off.

...

Jack knew he was going to have to tell Alison and probably Henry, too. At the very least. It was bad enough Old Spice had followed them back. They didn't need random strangers showing up, knowing things they really shouldn't and causing trouble.

But first, he needed coffee.

Vincent smiled at him as Jack slid onto the seat at the counter.

"Good morning, Sheriff," Vincent said, absently wiping down the counter as he approached. Jack wondered what the cloth did besides just being a cloth. Nothing in Eureka was just what it was. It probably had nano-something that attacked germs directly. He was going to keep his mental image of tiny armed robots fighting epic miniature battles against monsters to himself. He and the rest of Eureka never seemed to have the same sense of humour.

"The usual?" Vincent asked and Jack nodded. A moment later there was a Vinspresso in front of him and he closed his eyes, breathing in the aroma. When he opened them, he saw Vincent looking past him with a bright, friendly smile on his face, before it faded and Vincent paled a little.

Jack turned to see a short, but solidly built man swagger into the place like he had every reason to be there even if he was dressed more like Jack in his off time than any of the resident geniuses. He was also unmistakably dangerous and Vincent's reaction was not encouraging.

"How many in town?" Vincent asked faintly.

"Five," the man said, coming around the back of the counter and putting on an apron. Vincent didn't tense like he might have done with any one else.

"Oh dear," Vincent said and Jack saw the man quickly suppress a smile that reminded him a little too much of the quieter twin (or clone, or robot facsimile, you could never be too sure in Eureka) he'd met earlier.

"The twins," Vincent continued and Jack jerked at the parallel thought process. The man nodded and Vincent wrung his hands, still looking pale.

Jack desperately wanted to know what was going on but, given the reaction of the twin earlier, it seemed likely that this strange man knew him and the last thing Jack wanted to alert anyone to was his ignorance of the inconsistencies between universes.

"Adam?" Vincent asked, only marginally relaxing when the man nodded.

"And Faith," the man added and Vincent let out a sigh of relief.

Jack's dread and curiosity warred with equal fervor wanting to know the stories behind that reaction. He faked a call and fled before he could land in a time-space landmine.

...

Jack's claim of answering a call swiftly turned out to be true when he was summoned to a farm on the outskirts of town. Apparently someone or, given Jack's experience, more likely something was skulking around the forests that surrounded the farm. It took him almost an hour to get a proper trail on the culprit.

That was how he bumped into a beautiful woman with pale skin and dark hair.

"Long time, no see, Jackie-boy," she said without turning around. Jack was beginning to regret getting up that morning.

"Sure," he said with slight hesitation.

She turned to grin at him, her smile one of familiarity and he felt discomfit again. He'd lost track of the number of times that had happened that day. There was something quietly capable and vaguely dangerous that reminded him of Jo, and the twins and that man at Vincent's.

"Faith," she said and it took him a moment to realise it was her name.

"Jack Carter."

"I know," she said and rolled her eyes. He simply nodded.

"Is there a particular reason you're skulking around or is this something I'd rather not know?" he asked.

"I caught wind of an escaped experiment," she told him. "Usually Taggert would be here with me, but he's gone walkabout."

He realised her explanation meant that, like the twins from earlier, she knew about the fact that he'd come from an alternate timeline and needed the clarification. He wasn't entirely sure how to broach the topic her.

“I saw the twins earlier,” he said, trying to sound like he hadn't met them for the first time that morning. She nodded.

“They're on the other side of town, tracking from their side.”

They walked in silence, following the trail of random destruction the creature had created. Sometimes, he could hear something crashing through the undergrowth in front of them.

“You seem very calm about all this,” he told her.

"Half my friends have experienced alternate timelines," she told him with an unconcerned shrug. That wasn't what he'd meant but, he decided, it was just as good a point as he'd been trying to make in a round about way

“Yes, but do they work for the DOD?"

"Not directly and never by choice."

He almost smiled at her prompt response. His own relationship with the DOD was complicated at best given how many times they'd tried to fire him and how little good their interference in the town had resulted in.

"We're of the opinion there are some things the government is better off not knowing," she said with the air of someone confiding in him, but also a hint of amusement that meant they'd probably had this conversation before. He grinned at her.

Three hours later, when Fargo had taken custody of the experiment that was some sort of beefed up wolf (the result of an experiment involving hormones and he wasn't sure he cared anymore), Jack was just hoping the day would end soon.

...

Jo didn't know what to do with the man who showed up on her doorstep, the man who had the same voice as the man who answered to 'Dad' on her phone, the man who looked to be her age. She was barely coming to terms with the fact that her entire family was gone.

"Hey Joey," the man said. He kept his distance, which she appreciated.

"Why are you here?"

"Faith's friends detected a disturbance in the force," he said with a crooked smile. "Well, actually, a shift in the space-time continuum creating an alternate universe."

She looked at him blankly. For all that he was in most of the pictures, unchanging, with another version of her, she had no cause to trust him or to believe that this wasn't an elaborate ploy to get them to confess. If the DOD ever found out that they were from an alternate history, they'd never see daylight again. She wouldn't see Zane, even if they'd never had a relationship here and he'd never proposed.

"I don't know what you mean," she told him.

"I know you probably don't yet want to confront what I represent," he told her shrewdly. "But there are things you should know."

Finally, Jo nodded. He was right, she couldn't afford to remain ignorant of the new timeline. None of them could, the five who'd returned to a different future, not if they wanted to remain undetected. She gestured him in, noticing the way he didn't need any direction or time to acquaint himself before he headed to the livingroom. This proof of his familiarity that she didn't feel herself left her feeling chilled and uncomfortable.

"Of your dozen or so siblings, the town can at least recognise all of them, but they are only familiar with less than half."

He took out a tablet and she could see the background was a group shot in which he stood in the middle of a group whose ages ranged considerably, but he waited before doing anything further. Part of her was glad he was giving her time to adjust to the changes, but a larger part rankled at the idea of being read so easily and treated as though she were fragile. As though judging her train of thought, he smirked faintly and swiped to the first picture.

"How many siblings are there?" she asked.

"Thirteen" he said and she wasn't sure she liked the way it sounded almost like a question. "Some of them are in town, but I've got them to agree to give you a little time, but since most of them are excellent liars," he sounded proud of that fact, "I think that'll only buy you a short time."

She stared at him, trying to comprehend having thirteen, at least thirteen, people in and out of her life all the time. She loved her family, but she almost never saw them, except at Christmas and sometimes not even then.

"Each of your siblings has their own enemies," he continued, as though he hadn't noticed her distraction, but somehow she knew he must have picked up on it. "But they tend not to go for family. Not anymore at least. Still, you should probably be aware just in case."

And so started the crash course in her adoptive family.

...

Jo stepped into the bunker when the door swished open and felt herself relax almost immediately with SARAH greeted her. Even if SARAH had been BRAD briefly, somehow the bunker always felt like a safe place. It was undoubtedly because of Jack, but she would die before telling him that.

"Apparently I have a different family," she told him.

"I think I met some of them," he said, handing her a beer. She took a long sip.

"My family is dead and I have an adoptive father about my age and more than a dozen siblings."

"They seem nice and supportive and..."

"Crazy."

They smiled at each other and collapsed onto the couch together.

"Exactly," she said, sharing one of those moments of perfect understanding they occasionally had. "You know, there are thirteen of them."

"No," Jack said immediately. "No."

"No?"

"Four is enough. Four is more than enough. There are not thirteen."

She smirked at him, wondering what had happened.

"It's like having a whole bunch of Zane and Taggert's love children running around," Jack told, an edge of a whine in his voice. "You know, before Zane became an upstanding citizen."

For the first time since it had all began, Jo laughed.