Archive of Our Own

Jack ran into the bunker and skidded to a halt next to the couch. He had to speak to Zoe; if they really had changed things during their trip back to 1947 then he needed to make sure that she wasn't one of them. He opened his mouth to ask SARAH to call her then suddenly realised that the house hadn't welcomed him home like she usually did.

"SARAH? Are you there?"

He held his breath as he waited for her to answer then collapsed onto the floor when he was hit by some sort of electric shock.

"Holy...SARAH! What the hell?" he shouted as spasms ran through his body.

A bright light suddenly surrounded him, indicating that he'd been enclosed in one of the bunker's force fields, and SARAH finally spoke.

"Intruder alert. You are not Sheriff Carter. Intruder alert."

"What?" Jack stared at the ceiling incredulously. "Of course I'm Carter!"

"Your DNA does not match the DNA profile of Sheriff Jack Carter. You are an imposter," SARAH insisted.

"A what? SARAH you know me...son of a..." Jack swore as another shock hit him. "SARAH! If you don't cut it out right now I'll get Fargo to delete all the episodes of Project Runway that you've got saved on your hard drive."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, imposter," SARAH replied in a shifty tone of voice.

"I'm not an imposter!" Jack yelled. "I'm Jack Carter! I've lived here for four years, my...my favourite food is a cheese bacon burger, I have you record every Dodgers game, you help me cheat at the Times crossword every Sunday...SARAH, you do know me!"

There was a long pause and if Jack was able to stop twitching he would have crossed his fingers.

Then, "Your DNA does not match the DNA profile..."

Jack began to bang his head against the floor in frustration. Then the doorbell went, saving him from having to think up new ways to persuade SARAH that he was who he said he was.

"Sheriff Andy?" He blinked up at the AI as SARAH let him into the house.

"While I appreciate the promotion, Sheriff, I'm still just your deputy," Andy replied with that 'aww shucks' smile which was permanently affixed to his face.

"This is not Sheriff Carter," SARAH informed Andy before launching into her spiel about DNA again.

Jack just frowned. Andy was his deputy? What about Jo?

"You are correct, SARAH," Deputy Andy said after staring at Jack for a long moment. "The sheriff's profile is different and I'm also picking up some other anomalies...” he paused and tilted his head to one side, looking off into the distance. “There is a situation in the Global Dynamics infirmary that requires our presence and I believe it may be linked to your current predicament, sheriff.”

“Why? Did someone else’s house go crazy and tazer them?” Jack asked, angrily glaring at the ceiling.

“That’s a good one, boss.” Andy chuckled. “SARAH, you can release the force field now; I’ll take Sheriff Carter to Global Dynamics.”

“Thank you, Deputy Andy,” SARAH replied in a tone which Jack could only describe as simpering. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously then decided that he really didn’t want to know; he had too many other things to worry about right then.

“Boss, may I ask you a question?” Deputy Andy waited until Jack had fastened his seatbelt before starting the car.

Jack had agreed to let the deputy drive them to GD because his muscles were still spasming from the shocks and, with the way his luck was currently running, Jack would probably just end up driving right off the road.

“Sure,” he replied distractedly. He still needed to contact Zoe and his cell phone was back in Camp Eureka.

“Did you and Dr Blake happen to travel back to 1947 and return to find that things have changed?” Deputy Andy asked in a conversational tone of voice as he turned the car towards GD.

Jack choked on thin air. “What...how did...that’s just ridiculous. Why are you asking me that?”

Deputy Andy took his eyes off the road just long enough to give Jack a smile. “The pollen in your hair and on your clothing is consistent with pollen from this area in 1947. A scan of your skin and hair follicles shows a significant difference from normal environmental effects you should have experienced just by living your day to day life. Those things, coupled with the fact that you’re suddenly not showing a dynamic and don’t seem to have any reaction to that disappearance, lead me to believe that you’re not actually from this timeline.”

“Not dynamic? I’m plenty dynamic, okay?” Jack protested then shifted in his seat a little. “Why do you think that Allison is involved in this? If it was true...which it isn’t.”

“Dr Blake's bondmate has just been admitted to Global Dynamics infirmary suffering from shock,” Deputy Andy informed him. “According to the Global Dynamics mainframe, this appears to be due to a sudden severance of the pair bond, usually caused by the death of their partner, however Dr Blake is also present in the infirmary and very much alive. I have concluded that her dynamic has simply disappeared; just as yours has.”

“Right.” Jack nodded. “Yeah, I have no idea what you just said to me.”

“I know. That’s because of the altered timeline.” Deputy Andy held up a hand to stop Jack’s protests. “Don't worry, your secret is safe with me, boss.”

Jack sighed, too tired to keep arguing. “Thanks, Andy.” He stared out of the window as the car drove through the GD security gate then replayed a part of the conversation. “Wait. Did you say Dr Blake’s partner? Who the hell am I up against this time?”

“Dr Blake is married to Dr Isaac Graham,” Andy said, putting the car into park.

“Married?” Jack closed his eyes for a moment and prayed for strength before climbing out of the car. “Just awesome! I finally make a move on the woman of my dreams and she’s suddenly married to some guy I’ve never even heard of.”

Andy turned to look at him. “Interesting. In this timeline you and Dr Graham are good friends.”

“Oh, so now I have to pretend to like the guy?” Jack muttered as they walked into the main foyer and headed for the elevators. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

“Perhaps you could talk to him about sports?” Andy suggested. “He's a fan of baseball.”

Jack hit the button for Section 3 and narrowed his eyes at Andy. “Real baseball or that VR abomination they play here?”

Andy laughed. “You’d better not let Zoe hear you say that; she and Dr Fargo spent a lot of time...”

“Zoe!” Jack grabbed hold of Andy’s arm, cursing himself that he hadn’t thought of just asking Andy before now. “Is she okay? Is she..?”

He couldn’t think of a way to ask if she was still his Zoe because Andy obviously wouldn’t know the difference.

Andy seemed to understand though. “She’s good, boss. She’s currently at MIT; early admission. You talk to her all the time and I believe that Vincent sends her a care package at least once a fortnight.”

Jack’s shoulders slumped in relief. She was okay...although, “MIT not Harvard? She’s not studying to be a doctor?”

“No, she’s studying robotics. Her interest lies in AIs.” Andy looked enormously proud as he said that. “She’s been tinkering beneath my pants since I became your deputy.”

“She’s been what?”

“The panel on the back of my left thigh accesses my knowledge database,” Andy informed him. “Thanks to Zoe, I am fully updated on all the latest AI technology and can perform minor repairs on myself. I can also list all the reasons why Logan was hotter than Duncan and why Veronica was too kickass to need a bondmate.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t; I had to live through that particular obsession.” Jack rolled his eyes, remembering the period of time where Zoe decided to become pre-teen PI and kept trying to steal his notes from any big cases he was working on. “After we’ve checked on the situation in the infirmary, you may need to explain this ‘bondmate’ stuff though; you keep mentioning it and I have a feeling it’s going to become a thing.”

When they entered the infirmary Jack spotted Allison sitting on the edge of a bed as someone took blood from her arm but she seemed to be paying no attention to that; instead her eyes were fixed on the unconscious man in the bed next to her.

“Someone want to fill me in on what’s going on here?” Jack asked as he stepped forward.

One of the doctor's, who Jack vaguely recognised from his numerous stays in the infirmary, turned away from her contemplation of Allison and her husband.

"Sheriff, thank you for coming. Something seems to have affected Dr Blake and Dr Graham's pair bond. I've never seen anything like it and I'm a little worried that it may turn out not be an isolated inci..." She trailed off as she stepped closer to Jack and frowned at him. “Sheriff, how are you feeling?”

Jack took a step back, warily. “I’m fine...”

“Actually, I don’t think you are.” The doctor pulled some gizmo out of her coat pocket before waving it through the air in front of him causing Jack to back up until he sat on one of the beds with a thump. “You appear to have been affected by the same thing as Dr Blake; your dynamic has completely gone. Can’t you feel the difference?”

“I...um...” Jack glanced at Andy who just gave him a grin and a thumbs up, like that was any kind of help. “No?” he tried.

The doctor cut a look at one of the other doctors who’d wandered over to them.

“Just like Blake,” she murmured and the other doctor nodded. “I think we need to call the director back.”

Jack frowned. What director? Allison was the director of GD; or she should be.

The sound of the infirmary doors opening had Jack turning towards them. A protesting Henry was being prodded into the room by the woman who had helped him fix the car that morning...or 63 years ago, it was hard keeping track of the time travel thing.

“Dr Olsen?” the woman called out and the doctor who had been fussing over Jack looked up. At least Jack now knew the doctor’s name...he just needed to remember the woman’s. “There’s something wrong with Henry’s dynamic, despite what he tells you. He's just getting stubborn in his old age.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that,” Henry told her then turned to Dr Olsen. “There’s nothing wrong with me, honestly.”

“That’s what the other two said as well,” Olsen told him as she prodded him over to the bed next to Jack.

Jack just shrugged when Henry and the woman finally noticed him. “I feel fine.”

“Jack, really?” The woman glared at him. “You’re not helping. I swear; you two are as bad as each other.”

“Umm...” Jack glanced at Henry who was subtly shaking his head. “Well, yeah! Of course we are; we’re guys. It’s what we do!”

Jack internally winced; he had no idea who this woman was or what was going on...so, of course, he was babbling like an idiot.

It seemed to work though; the woman gave him a wry smile. “And don’t I know it but will the both of you listen to me just this once and let Doctor Olsen run her tests?”

“Seeing as we’re already here, I guess we could,” Henry told her, widening his eyes a little at Jack.

“But just this once.” Jack forced himself to laugh along with her, only a little hysterically, until she and the doctor walked away to whisper among themselves. Then the smile immediately dropped off his face as he spun around to hiss at Henry. “What the hell is going on?”

“It looks as though we altered the timeline more drastically than we first thought,” Henry whispered back.

Jack gave him an incredulous look. “You think? Sarah thinks I’m an imposter and tasered me...a lot! Zoe’s been looking down Andy’s pants. Everyone keeps telling me I’m not dynamic enough...”

“And I’m pretty sure I’m married.” Henry held up his hand to show the band around his ring finger.

“To car girl?” Jack asked.

“Grace. Her name’s Grace Monroe,” Henry reminded him.

“Right.” Jack nodded. “Married, huh? Wow, seems like there’s a lot of that going around.” He nodded towards Allison.

Henry looked over and then blinked in surprise. “No, that can’t be...is that Isaac?”

“Uh, yeah, I think that’s what Andy said his name was,” Jack said. “Another jackass I have to fight for Allison.”

Henry frowned. “No, Jack, you don’t understand. Isaac Graham was Allison’s first husband.”

“Her first...” Jack inhaled sharply as he realised what Henry was saying. “Kevin’s dad?”

He turned to look at Allison and the way she was still staring at the unconscious man as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“Okay, I think she wins the weirdness contest so far,” Jack said.

Henry nodded but didn’t say anything as Grace and Dr Olsen returned with some more doctors. The two of them allowed the doctors to take their samples and run scans on them with their Star Trek type gadgets. They answered the numerous questions about where they’d been that day and what they’d eaten; Jack followed Henry’s lead and between them they managed to concoct a story where they met for lunch in the station before wandering the Founder’s Day exhibits. Jack hoped that Allison was paying enough attention that she could play along but she was showing no sign of it; he was beginning to get a little worried about her.

When a couple of GD security guards dragged Fargo, kicking and screaming, into the infirmary, claiming that they’d ‘found another one’, Olsen began to look really concerned.

“Okay, it’s obviously spreading, whatever it is,” she said to the guards. “It’s time to initiate a quarantine, just to be safe.”

“Wait, quarantine?” Jack asked, sitting up straighter. “Isn’t that going a little overboard?”

“I don’t think so, not until we figure out what this is and contain it,” the doctor told him. “We’re just lucky that it’s only affected one pair of bondmates so far; we can’t risk the chance of it tearing apart other bonds.”

Jack shot Henry a look; this was going too far, but Henry firmly shook his head and if Jack had learned anything about living in Eureka, it was that he should trust Henry’s judgement.

Well, apart from that one time with the whole GD lockdown thing and who even remembered that, really?

Doctor Olsen quickly organised the quarantine. The area of the infirmary containing Jack, Henry, Fargo and Allison, along with Isaac, was immediately surrounded by a force field which they would be unable to leave. They were apparently level one. Level two was designated to the doctors and guards who’d been in the infirmary with them; they weren’t exhibiting any ‘symptoms’ but may have been ‘infected’. Jack just barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The level two-ers were allowed to leave but had to wear health monitors which would alert GD the moment they began to show anything out of the ordinary. Everyone, apart from the level one group, now had to wear biohazard suits while in the infirmary. It was just embarrassing and Jack fell back onto the bed with his arm covering his face.

Grace was given the option of whether to remain in the force field with the rest of them; she wasn’t showing any signs of being affected and apparently wasn’t ‘bonded’ to Henry but she was his wife. She did seem genuinely torn but decided she could do more to help if she was level two; a decision that Henry encouraged. Jack couldn’t decide if that was so that he could talk to the group without her hearing or because he was obviously so uncomfortable with the concerned and familiar way she kept touching him.

As soon as everyone left to take decontamination showers and change into their biohazard suits, Jack turned back to Henry. “This is ridiculous. We should just tell them what happened, get out of quarantine and work on a way to get us back home.”

“We can’t do that,” Henry replied.

“Why not?” Jack asked. “If we tell them the truth, they can start figuring out what’s really wrong with this Isaac guy instead of thinking it’s something to do with all of us.”

“It probably is something to do with all of us,” Henry told him. “We’ve essentially replaced the versions of us from this timeline. I don’t pretend to understand what this dynamic is but the people we replaced had it and, in taking their places, we’ve erased their dynamics along with them.”

Jack thought back to what Andy had said in the car ride and could see where Henry might be going with this. “The dynamic seems to be related to the bonding they keep talking about. This pair bond thing.”

“Exactly,” Henry pointed at him excitedly. “It appears that here two people can be connected somehow; maybe through some kind of regulation of brainwaves...I’m not really sure but the point is that in erasing the people, we erased the dynamic...”

“Which erased the bond and caused Isaac to go into shock,” Jack finished. “Got it.”

“Okay, I’m totally lost,” Fargo said. “All I know is that my house has other people living in it and when I went to find you guys again, people were looking at me funny. Next thing, I'm being dragged in here.”

Henry quickly filled Fargo in on what they knew, which wasn’t much, while Jack watched Allison with concern about the fact she hadn’t spoken once since he’d arrived at the infirmary. Finally, he walked across to her bed and sat down next to her.

“I know it's a shock seeing him again and even worse to see him sick...but that’s not your fault, Allison,” Jack assured her. “It's the fault of whatever sent us back to 1947 in the first place. And don’t forget, whatever timeline we’re in, this is still Eureka; they’re going to figure out a way to help him.”

There was no reply so Jack sighed and stood again, heading back over to Henry and Fargo.

"If they don't, we will," Allison suddenly said and Jack spun back around in time to see her visibly pull herself together. "We're going to fix this."

"Hell yeah, we will." Jack grinned at her, relieved that she'd stopped behaving like a zombie, and got a ghost of a smile in return.

She got off her bed, her hand hovering over Isaac's for a moment before she walked across the quarantine area to join the others. "Henry was right, we have to keep the time travel to ourselves. No one can know about it."

"I'm not sure, Allison," Jack argued. "We keep pretending that we've been exposed to some mysterious...something that changed our DNA and gave us selective amnesia? We're surrounded by the smartest people in the world, they're not going to buy that for long."

"So we come up with a better story," Allison replied then held up her hand against the protests from Jack and Fargo. "There's a military protocol in place for this. If they find out the truth, they'll consider us a threat and sanction us."

"Sanction as in lock us away?" Fargo looked horrified at the prospect.

Henry shook his head. "Sanction as in remove the threat. Permanently." He raised his eyebrows meaningfully.

"Okay, lying it is," Jack said.

"Yeah, I vote in favour of that," Fargo agreed, nodding his head enthusiastically.

"So, we go with the selective amnesia for now until we can come up with something better and we'll have to do that quickly." Jack sighed, he was pretty sure they had a day, if that, before their story fell apart.

Fargo and Henry immediately began making suggestions and arguing amongst themselves and Allison leaned against Jack's bed with a loud sigh of her own.

"Glad to have you back with us," Jack told her, hopping onto the bed so that he was sitting next to her.

"I didn't go anywhere, Carter," she replied. "I was listening to you all it's just...I felt like if I took my eyes off him for a second he'd disappear. Stupid, I know."

"It's not stupid. In your position, I'd probably do the same," Jack insisted and she gave him a grateful smile. "Are you really okay, though? I'm mean, your husband's back from the dead; that's got to be messing with your head a little."

She snorted. "You have no idea."

"In that case, I wouldn't look behind you," Henry said slowly, his eyes wide and fixed on a point over Jack's shoulder.

Jack twisted around and his mouth fell open at the sight of a very familiar man staring at them through the infirmary window. "Holy shit!"

"Dr Stark!" Fargo jumped up and looked like he was about to rush the force field in an attempt to hug Stark.

"Nathan..." Allison whispered and Jack reached out to grab her hand wincing a little when she clutched on tightly.

Stark took in their reactions with an interested look on his face and then pointed at the wall behind Henry. The blank wall behind Henry. Jack was about to turn back to Stark when Fargo suddenly paled.

"Oh frack! We were just about to start testing those around GD back home but it hadn't been implemented yet so I didn't think..." Fargo trailed off and looked like he was about to throw up.

Jack looked at the wall again. "Test what? The lamp?"

Fargo shook his head and walked closer to the wall, pointing at a small crack. "It's a surveillance device that the DOD wanted. It's made to blend into any room; I mean, who's going to be suspicious of a crack in the paint?"

"Surveillance? Are you telling me that thing is a camera?" Jack asked incredulously, standing to take a closer look for himself.

"Camera...and microphone." Fargo gulped.

Jack froze. "Microphone?"

The group turned, as one, to look at Stark who raised an eyebrow at them and very clearly mouthed 'microphone'.

"Aww, crap!" Jack swore; Stark had heard everything they'd said.

So much for keeping it a secret.

* * * * * * * *

"I honestly don't know what to say to you right now," Stark glared at them all from inside his biohazard suit.

"That's got to be a first," Jack tried to joke but it fell flat when Stark turned his angry gaze directly on him.

It had taken Stark all of ten minutes to change into the suit and stalk into the quarantine zone, against the protests of the GD guards. The doctors had been told to run their tests on the samples already taken while Stark 'conducted preliminary interviews before launching a full investigation'. This meant that only Stark was inside the quarantined area with them.

Jack was taking it as a good sign that Stark had bothered to put the biosuit on and was playing along with the story the doctors had been given. It meant that there was a chance that they could convince him not to report them to the DoD. Of course, it could be a ruse to get more information out of them before turning them over but they didn't really have any choice but to take that risk.

"Playing with time travel? What the hell were you thinking?" Stark hissed at Henry. "Or do you not give any consideration to the possible consequences of your actions where you're from?"

Henry opened his mouth to answer but Jack stepped in. "Hey, it wasn't his fault. It wasn't any of our faults so dial back on the accusations and hear us out."

"Fine," Stark gritted out. "Enlighten me, Sheriff." Jack glanced towards the crack in the wall and Stark rolled his eyes. "It's switched off and, luckily for you, the high priority of the project means that all the test recordings were sent directly to me. No one else will hear what you have to say."

Jack took a deep breath. "Okay, well...there was the bridge device and some solar flares then our phones all rang and we were in 1947."

Stark blinked at him. "That cleared everything up. Thanks, Carter." Sarcasm dripped from his voice before he turned back to Henry expectantly.

Henry launched into an explanation which involved a lot more science-y words while Jack huffed. Okay, so maybe he didn't really understand what had happened, despite having lived through it. Allison patted his arm sympathetically.

"Wait," Stark said suddenly, cutting off whatever Henry was saying. "Did you just say Trevor Grant? The Trevor Grant; he helped you leave 1947?"

"Yes," Henry nodded enthusiastically. "It was amazing, Nathan. To actually meet him; you'd have loved it."

Stark looked thoughtful. "I think I am going to meet him. There's a man being held in quarantine at the sheriff's station. He was found wandering through town with the same symptoms as you but he doesn't have clearance to be in Eureka and has no ID on him. I knew he looked familiar on the footage from the station..."

"Oh god!" Allison gasped and turned to Jack. "He had your jacket with your cell phone in the pocket."

"Are you saying we accidentally brought him back here with us?" Jack asked. "Because he was wearing my jacket?"

Henry frowned and shook his head. "Not accidentally. The phones were specifically calibrated for each of us; the only way he could've travelled here with us is if he deliberately retuned it."

"Oh, son of a bitch!" Jack spat angrily. "He made us swap jackets on purpose; he tried to strand me back there so he could take my place!"

"Calm down, Carter. You're going to attract even more attention and security's already nervous," Stark told him. Although, for some reason, he looked plenty angry himself. "We'll deal with Grant but first we need to figure out a way to explain all of this and get you out of quarantine. We can't even begin to try and fix this with you all stuck in here."

Allison smiled at him. "You're going to help us."

Stark sighed. "I should be informing Washington...but you were right about what they'd do to you if they found out. It would kill Isaac and the kids if I let that happen."

Jack frowned, realising that he hadn't even asked Allison if her kids were alright. Which they couldn't possibly be because if Allison was still married to Isaac then Jenna wouldn't exist or at least not the same Jenna as in their timeline. Jack grabbed her hand again getting a confused look from Allison, probably because it seemed to come out of nowhere, and a dark glare from Stark until he appeared to shake himself out of it.

"When we get you out of here, we need to go over certain social etiquettes that you'll have to abide by," Stark said, staring pointedly at Jack and Allison's joined hands. "For now, don't touch each other unless absolutely necessary."

"Oh relax, I'm not trying to make a move on her." Jack rolled his eyes. "It's a supportive thing. You know, that friends do for each other?"

"And you don't have permission to do it," Stark told him.

Jack scoffed. "Permission?"

"Carter, will you just listen to me?" Stark growled. "I'm actually trying to help you and we don't have time for this. You need to do what I say, when I say it until we can get you all someplace secure; then we can have one big explanation session because I've got plenty of questions of my own."

Allison gently pulled her hand from Jack's grasp. "He's right, Carter. We're out of our element here and we need to follow his lead."

Jack grudgingly nodded his head.

Nathan nodded back. "Alright, I'm going to return to my office and work on a plan. Is there anything else important that I need to know?"

"Jo," Jack said immediately. "She was with us and she hasn't been dragged in here so I'm guessing no one's noticed her lack of dynamic yet."

"Jo?" Stark questioned.

"Jo Lupo; my deputy," Jack told him, getting a sinking feeling in his stomach.

"Andy's your deputy, Carter," Stark said slowly. "I've never heard of this Jo person."

"You have to have," Jack insisted. "Small, scrappy, ex-special forces? Loves big guns? Come on, it's Jo; she's been in Eureka longer than I have."

Stark just looked at him blankly so everyone else joined in.

"She's got long dark hair, dark eyes, about 5'4," Allison explained.

"Very dedicated to her job," Henry added.

"She smells like summertime," Fargo said, dreamily.

Stark sighed. "I still have no idea who you're talking about but I will give her description to my head of security and we'll try and track her down. I'm assuming from your reactions that you all think this Jo is trustworthy...more so than Grant, anyway?"

They all nodded.

"Definitely," Jack assured him, "No one I'd rather have at my back."

"What were you being supportive about? When you grabbed my hand," Allison asked once Stark had left to figure out his grand plan. She kept her voice low because the doctors had returned to resume their tests. "Well, which particular bit had you thinking I needed support right then?" She amended wryly, as she glanced over at Isaac.

"Jenna," Jack replied, then at her confused look he expanded. "I suddenly realised that she couldn't be the same Jenna that we left because Isaac's her dad not Stark."

Understanding broke over Allison's face and she gave him a smile. "No, she is the same. Her and Kevin, they're both exactly the same; I managed to check on them while the medical team were moving Isaac into the ambulance."

"But how?" Jack asked.

"I have no idea," Allison admitted. "She's definitely still Nathan's daughter and I don't know how to explain that but I'm not going to complain."

"Fair enough." Jack smiled back at her then looked up when Dr Olsen approached the group.

"Dr Blake, we want to dial back on Dr Graham's sedatives over night so that we can wake him up slowly tomorrow morning," she told Allison. "His heart rate has returned to normal and there are no other physical effects. His dynamic is still in place and it looks like he suffered the standard reaction from a sudden severance of the pair bond rather than exposure to whatever has affected you."

"The standard reaction," Allison repeated with a frown. "Doctor, I found him having a seizure on my...our kitchen floor. I don't want him woken up until we're sure that won't happen again."

"I understand that it must've been a shock and that you're probably feeling a little overprotective; any omega would be when their alpha's been hurt...even if you're not technically an omega right now," Olsen said sympathetically to Allison while Jack struggled to keep the confusion at the unfamiliar terms off his face. "However I'm confident that this is the right course of action."

"Well I'm not," Allison told her firmly.

"Doctor Blake...Allison." Doctor Olsen's face softened. "He's going to be fine. You know yourself the great strides we've made in post bond care and, in this case, the bond wasn't broken because of a death; you're still here. That's going to make his recuperation a lot easier because he won't be grieving. You need to trust me, you made me your Assistant Medical Director for a reason."

Jack blinked at that. That meant that Allison was GD's Medical Director instead of being the Director Director. It was pretty obvious that Stark was still in charge of GD here but Jack had kind of assumed that Allison would be the DoD liaison, just as she had been when he first got to town. All these changes were beginning to make his head hurt.

Allison looked at the still unconscious Isaac. "I want to look over all his test results before I even think of agreeing to this."

Olsen smiled. "I wouldn't expect anything less."

When Allison and Olsen wandered away to do just that, Jack flopped back onto his bed; he was completely exhausted. He couldn't quite figure out when he'd slept last, what with all the time travelling, but he was pretty sure it was close to two days ago by this point. He figured that there was nothing he could do for the time being so he may as well take a quick nap.

He struggled back to waking when Fargo shook his shoulder.

"Ten more minutes, SARAH," he mumbled, trying to turn back to his pillow.

"No, Sheriff, wake up," Fargo hissed at him. "Something's happening."

Jack's eyes flew open at that and he pushed himself up on the bed. Fargo pointed to the other side of the quarantine force field where Stark was talking to Olsen and Grace.

"Looks like he's come up with an idea," Henry said lowly when Jack moved to stand next to him.

"...in Section Four," Stark was saying, his voice carrying over to them. "On its own, it wouldn't cause any problems but we believe that it may have interacted with another project in the building."

Olsen frowned. "You were running experiments on the pair bond and you didn't inform us?"

Stark gave her a look which made her shrink back a little. "You're overstepping your place, doctor; you don't have Doctor Blake's job just yet."

Olsen protested but Stark waved a hand to cut her off. "We were not running experiments on the pair bond. The team running the project in question are creating a nootropic specifically designed to help sufferers of Alzheimer's disease."

"A nootropic?" Olsen asked before her eyes widened. "Oh wow, they're using a synthetic vasopressin, aren't they?"

At that point the conversation descended into the usual Charlie Brown 'wah wah wah' noises that Jack always heard in his head whenever scientists began talking about things he had no hope of understanding. He noted that Henry was looking very interested though and resolved to get him to do a scientist-Carter translation later on if he thought it was relevant to their current situation.

Nathan, Olsen and Grace continued to debate whatever the hell it was that they were talking about and Jack stared longingly back at his bed until an apparent decision was reached.

"We think we know what may have caused this," Olsen told Jack, Fargo, Henry and Allison, who had joined them by this point, through the force field. "Well, maybe not exactly what caused it but enough to be confident that it's passed along by contact rather than being an airborne virus."

"It looks like you got contaminated when you visited Dr Singh's lab for me this morning, Fargo." Stark was standing slightly behind the two women and raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Fargo.

"Right, yes," Fargo said, a little too enthusiastically. "I remember that. I did it this morning...because you asked me to and that's what I did."

Stark rolled his eyes and Jack inwardly groaned at what a terrible liar Fargo was. Luckily, Olsen and Grace either didn't notice or, more likely, put it down to typical Fargo strangeness.

"Then you passed it along to Jack and Henry, probably when you had lunch together," Grace told them. "You picked a great day to have lunch at the station, guys. Who knows how many people could've been affected if you'd gone into Cafe Diem."

Jack was impressed. Stark had not only managed to come up with some kind of cover story for them; he'd also managed to tie it in with the lies they'd already told when they first got to the infirmary. Jack might even buy him a beer when they managed to get out of here...maybe.

"We're not sure how Dr Blake was affected as well, though..." Olsen trailed off and looked at Allison expectantly.

Crap. It was passed along by touch and apparently they didn't have permission to touch Allison. Jack thought fast.

"She tripped!" he suddenly yelled and everyone looked at him in surprise. "Sorry but I just remembered. We were looking at the exhibit of that electro-static thingy which made my hair stand on end and Allison tripped as she was walking past."

"And you reached out to steady me," Allison nodded, picking up Jack's lie seamlessly. "I'd forgotten all about that."

"You've had bigger things on your mind since then." Jack shrugged and gave her a small smile.

"Well, that would do it," Grace said and Jack gave a tiny sigh of relief when Olsen nodded in agreement. Even Stark's shoulders relaxed.

"Alright, it's already late so you all get some sleep, then in the morning we can figure out where to go next," Olsen told them. Jack groaned and Olsen gave him an amused look. "I know you hate staying here, Sheriff, but I want to be completely sure that you're not going to be infecting other people when you leave. Give me until the morning to run some more tests and then we'll see about maybe letting you go."

"Alright," Jack agreed sulkily although, if he was honest with himself, he was still so tired that it probably wouldn't matter where he slept.

* * * * * * * *

In the morning, Jack stretched and slowly opened his eyes. Yep, still in the infirmary which meant that the day before definitely hadn't been a bad dream. He sat up and blinked in surprise when he spotted Jo in the quarantine area with them.

"Hey, when did you..."

"Jack," Allison talked over him. "You haven't met Nathan's cousin yet, have you? She's in town visiting for a while."

Jack frowned in confusion, still not completely awake without his usual morning shot of coffee.

"It's nice to meet you," Jo said, giving pointed glances at the couple of doctors who were milling around the room and who were possibly within earshot.

"Yes, you too," he replied slowly.

"It was just Jo's bad luck that on her very first visit to Eureka, Fargo was the one to show her to Nathan's house," Henry commented conversationally. "Just before he came to meet us for lunch."

"Wow that is bad luck, Jo was it?" Jack smirked. "What's that short for, by the way?"

"Jo was in Nathan's house all day which is why no one knew she'd been infected until he got home," Allison continued, ignoring the glare Jo was sending Jack. "He brought her in here about an hour after you went to sleep."

"We had a couple of lucky misses it seems," Olsen said as she approached and caught the end of the conversation. "If Ms Lupo had decided to explore the town or if you'd eaten at Vincent's instead of at the station then this could've been a whole lot worse." She grinned. "It makes a nice change for us to catch something so soon."

Jack couldn't help but chuckle at that, memories of real crises which had affected the entire town running through his head. He was starting to like Olsen, she had a sense of humour and, judging from her wrinkled clothes and the dark smudges under her eyes, she'd been there all night running her scans on them. It made Jack feel a little bad for deceiving her but it definitely showed how much she cared about her patients' wellbeing.

"Anyway," she continued, "there has been no further change in your condition and the scans show that any traces of the experimental desmopressin has long since dissipated, possibly before you even got here. I'm going to make you all take a decontamination shower to be on the safe side but after that you're free to go."

"Yes!" Jack punched the air in celebration.

Olsen held up a hand. "I am going to insist on daily visits back here so that I can monitor you all, at least for the next month. I'm sorry, Ms Lupo, it looks like you'll be staying in Eureka for longer than you planned. The sensitive nature of this means that I can't pass your records along to another doctor outside of town."

Jo nodded and obviously tried to look resigned. "I understand."

Two hours and another embarrassing decon shower later, Jack approached his house warily. "SARAH?"

The door swung open. "Welcome home, Sheriff."

"O-kay..." Jack entered the house, motioning for Jo to wait outside for a moment.

Stark had left a message that the entire group were to meet at the bunker later that day so that he could 'follow up on their statements'. As Jo had nowhere else to go, Jack had insisted she go home with him until they could figure out where she was supposed to live now.

"You're not going to taze me again, right?" he asked the house.

"Of course not, Sheriff," SARAH replied. "Dr Stark has updated my systems with your new DNA profile. He also instructed Deputy Andy to inform me of your 'incident'."

Jack rolled his eyes; he could practically hear the quotation marks. "If I invite a friend in here, are you going to taze her?"

There was a weird mechanical noise that almost sounded like a huff. "I only initiated the security protocols because my scans and calculations indicated that you were an imposter trying to replace the original Sheriff Carter. I am not going to initiate the protocol every time someone enters the house."

SARAH was beginning to sound very disgruntled so Jack quickly ushered Jo inside, trying to placate SARAH by letting her make them some coffee. Jack wanted to quiz Jo on what Stark had said to her before he brought her to the infirmary but he wasn't sure exactly what SARAH knew.

"So..." He looked up at the ceiling. "What did Andy tell you about what happened?"

"Doctor Stark informed Deputy Andy that you, Drs Fargo, Blake and Deacon, along with Ms Lupo were involved in a temporal anomaly," SARAH replied instantly. "This caused you to travel to 1947 and when you returned it was to an altered timeline."

"Yep, that about covers it," Jack said before turning to Jo. "Want to fill me in on what happened to you? How did you avoid everyone for so long?"

"I didn't avoid everyone," Jo told him. "I went to see Zane."

"Shit!" Jack gave her a sympathetic look. "I'm guessing that didn't go too well."

She gave a humourless chuckle. "He didn't even know who I was. So I went home and that wasn't even there. Apparently the scientist who was living there accidentally blew it up and it hasn't been rebuilt yet."

"Oh, Jo..." Jack put his arm around her and, for once, she took the comfort he was offering and curled into his side. That alone showed him that she must be feeling pretty awful.

"I walked up to the old range so that I could get my head together before I came to find you and I guess I stayed up there for longer than I thought," Jo admitted and Jack had to chuckle.

"Typical Jo; if in doubt go and shoot things until you feel better."

"It did make me feel a little better actually." Jo gave him a half hearted punch but at least it got a smile out of her. "GD's head of security found me. Apparently someone gave him my description and told him that I love guns...which made his search pretty easy."

She gave him a pointed look and Jack held his free hand up in defence. "I was worried about you and it looks like we have to trust Stark to help us."

Jo sat up properly and grinned at him. "That's got to be killing you."

"Oh my god! It really is!" Jack burst out. "This Stark's even more of an ass than ours was. Did you know that he told me I have to have permission to touch Allison?"

"Actually, he is correct," SARAH put in. "Dr Blake is a bonded omega so you need the permission of her alpha before you can touch her in any way. Dr Stark was just following social custom."

"See, I just don't get that," Jack said. "Or any of this really. Omegas, alphas, bonding..."

"Yeah, I don't understand it either," Jo agreed. "How can this place be so different? What the hell did we change?"

"It could be any number of things," SARAH told them. "Any change to the past, no matter how insignificant, could cause a dramatic difference to the future."

"The Butterfly Effect!" Jack pointed into the air triumphantly before giving Jo a smug look. "I saw that movie."

Jo shook her head at him and then drummed her fingers on the arm of the chair. "I think it may have something to do with Grant."

"Well, he is a big time scientist. Perhaps him travelling here with us stopped some discovery he was supposed to make," Jack suggested. "That could definitely cause a big change."

Jo hummed thoughtfully. "Stark's really got a problem with him being here. He was fine...well, you know, the normal Stark, when he was telling me about you guys being stuck in quarantine but as soon as he mentioned Grant being at the station, he got all tense."

"Like he was hiding something?" Jack asked worriedly.

"No," Jo said. "More like he was just barely stopping himself from hauling ass down there to punch the guy."

"Huh." Jack frowned.

From Henry and Fargo's reaction, Grant was supposed to be some sort of science god so he figured Stark would be just as eager to meet him, not act outright hostile. He pushed that to the back of his mind for now but made a mental note to watch the behaviour of both men.

"So, what else did you get out of Stark?" he asked Jo, turning the conversation back on track.

"We didn't have much time to talk so just the basics that you already know and the cover story he came up with for me," she said. "You know, he's really going out on a limb for us. It's one thing to pull strings from his GD office where he can cover his tracks but to say that I'm his cousin? If this falls apart, it's going to be obvious that he's been helping us."

"I'm sure he'll managed to come up with some excuse to keep his ass out of the fire," Jack scoffed. "He'll probably claim that we brainwashed him or something."

Jo gave him an unreadable look.

"What?" Jack asked.

She shrugged. "I think you're being a bit hard on him. He didn't have to help us."

"It's Stark!" Jack protested. "He's probably got some ulterior motive for it."

"You sure you're not projecting your feelings for our Stark onto this one?" Jo raised an eyebrow at him.

Jack just stared at her blankly. "Feelings?"

"You're pissed at him, Carter!" Jo huffed in frustration. "He sacrificed himself and you're pissed because you think that it should've been the other way around. You've been angry at him ever since he died!"

"Believe me, I was angry at him long before that," Jack muttered, squirming in his seat a little because he hadn't thought that anyone else had picked up on that.

He was angry at Stark, their Stark. He could've shown Jack which buttons to push to stop the day repeating but, no, he had to decide to be a hero. Jack knew in his bones that, despite what Henry said, if he'd been the one to step into the decelerator then Stark would have figured out a way to bring him back. But there was no way that Jack could return that favour so now Stark was just...gone.

Except he wasn't. He was still alive here and for some reason that made Jack even angrier, like it proved his theory right somehow; even though, intelligently, he knew that it just meant that the Groundhog Day incident probably hadn't happened here.

"I may have been projecting...a little," he admitted.

"I know," Jo said and she slumped back into the sofa next to Jack. "Just dial it back at bit, okay? At least when he's around. We don't need you pissing him off enough that he decides not to help us after all."

"Alright," Jack agreed with a sigh. "So...want to find out what we've been up to in this timeline?"

Jo laughed tiredly. "Why not. It can't get any worse, right?"

SARAH agreed to tell them as much as she could but made it clear that she wouldn't discuss anything to do with dynamics or bonding. Apparently Stark wanted to explain that to the entire group when they were together so that they would all get the same information rather than jumping to conclusions from little pieces they picked up on their own. Personally, Jack thought it was actually down to Stark's need to control everything but he didn't want to set Jo off again so he kept that to himself.

The two of them spent the rest of the day getting acquainted with their counterparts from this timeline. Or rather, with Jack's counterpart. Jo's words came back to haunt her when they asked SARAH to try and track down this timeline's Jo Lupo. It turned out that her parents had decided to stop having children after their third son had been born.

"Oh, this reality blows!" Jo was pacing around the room, looking like she really wanted to shoot something. "I thought maybe that I turned down the Eureka job, that I was still with the Special Forces or got another job somewhere else...but I wasn't even born?"

"Jo..."

"What, Carter?" Jo spun to face him angrily. "What can you possibly say that will make me feel better right now?"

Jack flinched a little but didn't back down. "You were born, Jo. You were born in our reality and I, for one, am really glad that you were."

Jo stared at him for a long time. "Okay, that wasn't bad. But this reality still blows!"

"A world without Jo Lupo? Of course it does," Jack laid it on thick just to make her roll her eyes and give him a reluctant smile. "At least you're not involved in an all out war with someone who you actually got on with back home."

It turned out that Jack and Abby had not parted on quite as good terms in this reality. Jack had apparently been to court six times to battle over who got custody of Zoe. He didn't know the exact details because it infringed on SARAH's previously outlined boundaries concerning dynamics but he knew that it had taken the intervention of Dr Isaac Graham in the last two court appearances to get the judges to let Zoe stay in Eureka with him; it looked like they were friends after all. Still, it tied Jack's stomach up in knots to think of how bad the divorce had become here and how that must have affected his little girl.

"Honestly? I thought you'd be more upset about the lacrosse thing," Jo told him.

Jack glowered back at her. "I'm trying to block that part out."

He'd played lacrosse in high school. Not baseball as he had in their reality; lacrosse. What the hell?

He looked at the empty space where his Mickey Mantle bat should be and shook his head forlornly. "This reality blows."

"Right?" Jo threw her hands up in the air.

"Doctors Fargo, Deacon and Monroe are at the door, Sheriff," SARAH suddenly said and Jack and Jo raised their eyebrows at each other in surprise.

"Henry brought his wife?"

"I guess he's told her the truth," Jack said with a shrug, feeling a little confused because Henry was the one who was so adamant that they couldn't tell anyone.

SARAH opened the door and both Jack and Jo gave Henry a look.

He sighed. "I didn't tell her, Grace figured out that something was wrong all on her own."

"You don't think I can tell when a Henry Deacon is lying to me? I've been married to one of them for two years." Grace said as she stepped past Henry and into the house. "Jack, I understand that we didn't really know each other in your timeline but we're pretty good friends in this one and I want to help you in any way that I can. I just want my Henry back."

"Well, I guess we could use all the help we can get," Jack replied then looked at Henry over her shoulder. "Are we really that bad at lying?"

"Apparently," Henry said, shaking his head.

"Only to the people who know you well," Grace said, patting Jack's cheek and moving to introduce herself to Jo.

"And too many crazy co-incidences?" Jo guessed, shaking Grace's proffered hand.

Grace nodded. "They decide not to eat in Cafe Diem for the first time, well, pretty much ever. Nathan's cousin happens to visit..."

"Allison trips over nothing. The selective amnesia..." Jo carried on.

"Alright, we get it," Jack said. "It needed more work but we were thinking on our feet."

Grace chuckled. "To be fair, this is Eureka; these kinds of coincidences do happen. I just also had a front row seat to Henry trying far too hard to be cheerful about everything and flinching every time I got too close. It was easier for me to connect the dots."

"I am sorry," Henry told her and she smiled at him but it was tinged with a touch of sadness.

Jack suddenly realised that Fargo was standing much too close to him and was bouncing on the spot like he really needed to use the bathroom. "Are you okay, Fargo?"

"I live with Dr Stark!" Fargo suddenly burst out as if he'd been holding that in for too long. He also looked half excited and half terrified at the same time.

Jack just blinked at him. "What?"

"That's why there were other people living in my house," Fargo said, still doing the bouncing thing. "I don't live there, I live with Doctor Stark...and he told me to call him Nathan," he added wonderingly.

Jack looked at Grace.

"It's true," she said. "Fargo's been living there since Nathan first brought him to Eureka but I believe that there are actually three bedrooms so Jo won't have to sleep on the couch."

Jack felt instant relief when Grace unwittingly confirmed that Fargo wasn't living with Stark because they were a couple; that would've been a step too far with the weirdness for Jack's brain to deal with. Then he caught up with the rest of what she'd said and couldn't stop himself from grinning evilly at Jo.

Jo, on the other hand, looked aghast. "I have to live with Stark?"

"You are my cousin."

All heads spun round to see Stark, along with Allison, standing in the doorway which had opened again without them noticing.

"Although you may want to say that with a little less horror when you're around town," he suggested, his tone amused.

"Right," Jo agreed looking highly uncomfortable.

Stark and Allison stepped fully inside and Stark nodded at Grace before raising an eyebrow at Henry who held his hands up defensively.

"He didn't tell me, I figured it out," Grace said, rolling her eyes as she sat on the sofa.

"Really?" Stark said as he also took a seat. "You figured out what exactly?"

"Okay, I didn't actually land on time travel," Grace admitted. "But I knew something was going on so I cornered Henry and...accused him of a few things."

"A few things?" Henry chuckled. "There were more than a few crazy suggestions. I personally liked the one where we were evil clones replacing the real people in order to take over the town."

Grace gave him a rueful smile. "Yeah, that one was a little farfetched but I was freaking out."

"I know," Henry sat next to her, his eyes still twinkling with mirth. "The point is, she was very upset and I could see that she would keep digging unless I told her the actual truth."

"Probably," Stark said. "She's as stubborn as you."

All three of them suddenly froze as they realised yet again that they weren't actually talking to the people they knew.

"Yeah, this is going to get complicated," Jack muttered before he perched on the arm rest next to Grace and tried to lighten the mood. "So...evil clones?"

"Oh shut up!" Grace smiled and smacked him on the arm.

"Hey!" Jack protested. "How come she's allowed to touch me? I thought there were rules about that kind of thing."

Stark gave him an exasperated look. "I'm sure we'll get to that. We're just waiting for...oh, here we are..." he broke off as the door opened yet again to admit Deputy Andy and Grant.

"I hope I'm here to get an apology," Grant said to Stark. "Locking an innocent man in a jail cell is certainly no way to welcome people to your town, you know."

Stark glared at him but didn't answer. Grant shrugged and turned to Jack instead.

"Nice place you've got here, sport," he indicated the house. "And you never told me that you worked with a robot man."

"Don't call me 'sport'," Jack snapped. "You tried to strand me in 1947, you're lucky I'm not throwing you out right now."

Grant had the good grace to wince. "Yes, I'm sorry about that. I just...I couldn't resist the chance to actually see the future."

"Sheriff Carter, my sensors indicate that your anger levels are rising," SARAH suddenly said, causing Grant to startle and then look around the room to try and see where the voice was coming from. "Would you like me to initiate my security protocol on the newcomer?"

Jack grinned and instantly forgave SARAH for the previous day's tazing; she was still on his side. "Not right now, SARAH, maybe later though. Thank you."

"Amazing," Grant breathed, still looking around wide eyed while the rest of them struggled to contain their laughter at SARAH's over protectiveness.

"Maybe we should get started," Allison suggested from her seat next to Fargo. "I'd like to check on Isaac before heading home for dinner with the kids."

"Is he awake?" Henry asked.

"Yes." Allison smiled. "There's been no more seizures and it looks like he's going to be fine."

"He also knows what's really happened," Stark added. When everyone, apart from Allison and Andy, frowned at him he shrugged. "Isaac's the co-director of Global. He was going know that I lied about what caused your dynamics to disappear and Allison's his wife so he was going to start looking into it; just like Grace."

"So, there's no nootropic project?" Grace asked.

"Oh, there is but he knows that there's no other project which could have interacted with it to cause this type of effect. Not even in section five," Stark replied. "Luckily, only the two of us have access to all of Global's projects so no one else will be able to contradict our claim."

Jack thought that he probably should've been disturbed at just how easily GD directors could cover things up but after Eva Thorne, and even what Stark and Allison had done when Kevin became connected to the Artefact, he really wasn't. He still felt the instinctual urge as Sheriff to give Stark a reproachful look for his actions but the memory of his earlier conversation with Jo, and the knowledge that Stark had actually done it for them, stopped him.

Stark settled back into his seat and nodded to Andy. "Deputy, if you could give us that small history lesson now..."

"Okie dokie, Doctor Stark." Andy walked to the front of the room to face them all, hooking his thumbs into his belt loop and giving them that wide smile. "During the late 1940s there was growing discontent over the invention and subsequent use of the atomic bomb. So a group came together with the aim of stopping such a thing from happening again; this group was spread out across the globe and included scientists, military personnel and government officials to name just a few..."

Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw Grant flinch but, by the time he turned to look, the man appeared to be simply listening to Andy's story impassively. With a small frown Jack began to turn back to Andy but stopped when he noticed that Stark was also watching Grant closely. Interesting.

"...this group called themselves The Consortium." Andy was saying and Jack tore his eyes away from Grant and Stark to stare at Andy in surprise.

"The Consortium?" Henry asked, his eyes just as wide as Jack's.

"What?" Jo asked. "Have you heard of them before? Why haven't I heard of them?"

"Those are the words that Beverly Barlow used to describe the people she was working for," Allison murmured, glancing at Henry. "That night in GD, she said that there was a consortium of people who would take care of Kevin."

Henry nodded, "She used it a few times actually."

Which was why Jack had recognised it too, Henry had mentioned the curious repetition of the word when the two of them discussed what had happened that night.

"So you've had the dubious pleasure of meeting Dr Beverly Barlow in your own time line." Stark shook his head ruefully. "She infiltrated Eureka and we had no clue. She was here for years and it wasn't until she suddenly disappeared one night and Carter...our Carter, started an investigation that we found out what she'd been doing."

"Did she kill Kim? The one from this time line?" Henry asked flatly.

Grace immediately covered his hand with one of her own. "The Kim here died in an accident, Henry..."

"The accident that happened the day before Beverly vanished," Stark interrupted, frowning at Henry. "We found evidence linking her to lots of problems we'd had at Global but not to that one...no matter how hard we looked."

"She did it," Henry said, his voice certain. "In our reality she altered the specs of the Artefact project and it caused a catastrophic reaction. If that's how Kim died here then your Beverly obviously just covered her tracks better."

Grace covered her mouth with her free hand and her eyes were full of sympathy as she looked at Henry. Stark appeared equally shaken and the group sat in a very uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

"So, this Consortium actually got started in the 40s?" Jack eventually asked, to try and move things along.

Andy glanced at Stark, who nodded, before answering in his inappropriately cheerful way. "Indeed they did, boss. From what we understand, they were originally set up to subtly thwart what they regarded as 'dangerous technological breakthroughs' but for some reason their plans changed. They decided that humanity was on a treacherous path and they had to take matters into their own hands."

Andy waggled his hands in front of him and had put on a spooky voice as he said the last part, as if he was in charge of story time at a preschool. Stark shook his head in exasperation and Jack ducked his to hide a smile.

"So they planted bombs at several strategic points around the world," Andy continued.

That suddenly wiped the smile of Jack's face and resulted in a few gasps from around the room.

"What?" Grant was sitting forward in his seat and was staring at Andy in horror. "They used bombs?"

"Yes sir, Dr Grant," Andy nodded and on the wall behind him the TV screen suddenly activated, showing an animation of the earth rotating with blinking red dots at certain places. "Thank you, SARAH."

"No problem, Deputy Andy," SARAH replied. "Anything I can do to help."

Jack refrained from rolling his eyes at his house's flirting and instead looked at the animation. "Those dots are where the bombs were placed?"

"Yes," Stark answered. "Each place carefully chosen for minimum casualties but maximum fallout."

"Fallout?" Henry asked. "They used atomic bombs?"

"They used the original blueprints but altered them for their own needs," Stark told him. "They wanted to change the world, not destroy it. Unfortunately they almost did both."

"Are you saying that the bombs actually went off?" Allison asked, horrified. "No one managed to stop them?"

"No one knew what they were doing until it was already too late," Grace joined in with the recounting of the story. "They had members in very high places who covered their tracks for them. It took five years before we could even begin to get a handle on the organisation we were dealing with."

"Grace is Global's DoD liaison," Stark explained. "She was brought in after we found out about Beverly."

"You're the DoD liaison," Jack said slowly.

They were trying to avoid being reported to the DoD and sanctioned and they'd just unknowingly spilled their secret to someone who worked for them. Someone, whose job was apparently to look for threats to Eureka.

"Jack, I meant what I said," Grace put a hand on his thigh. "I'm going to help you. You're my friends, or at least the versions of you in this reality are; I'm not going to get you sanctioned. I promise."

"You can trust her, Carter," Stark said. "I just told you all how I abused my position in Global to help you; I wouldn't have done that in front of Grace if I thought she might turn us in."

It was a fair point and when Jack looked at Stark he could see the other man believed what he was saying. He caught Henry's eye and, despite the surprise he could see there, Henry nodded his agreement with Stark.

"Alright," Jack said and let out a loud exhale. "So what exactly did these bombs do? I mean, they were the cause of this whole dynamic thing you've got here, right?"

"Right." Stark eyed him for a moment and then continued. "The bombs released a substance into the air, a form of vasopressin."

"That's the stuff you were talking about...the experiment in section 4," Jack interjected.

Stark nodded. "It's a hormone found in most mammals but the Consortium made a synthetic version which they had tweaked to target humans and the receptors in our brains which control aggression."

"So this vaso...stuff can brainwash you?" Jack's mind cast back to the last experiment to control aggression that he'd seen GD run. The one that ended up with Jo and Fargo, among others, convinced that aliens were invading Eureka. He wondered if that particular incident had happened here too.

"Actually, Jack, vasopressin's mainly used by the kidneys to reduce dehydration," Henry told him. "It also increases blood pressure and is used in memory formation. I mean, we've been making synthetic versions for years to help fight diabetes and to control shock due to blood loss..."

"And stop bedwetting in kids," Fargo added, then flushed and shifted uncomfortably when everyone looked at him. "What? It does."

Jack shook his head and turned back to Stark. "And it can also control aggression?"

"In certain animals it can," he replied. "The Consortium altered it to work on us instead. They set up the bombs so that the dispersal of the chemical would cover the entire planet and everyone who breathed it in would suffer from a drastic drop in their aggression levels."

"And stop the urge to fight or make bigger and badder weapons, right." Jack scrubbed a hand over his face. "That's..."

"Drastic?" Grace suggested.

"I was going to go with completely bug nuts crazy but drastic works too," Jack told her.

Grace gave him a grin that showed she agreed with his assessment.

"So what went wrong?" Jo asked. "GD's still being controlled by the Department of Defence...actually, the fact that the DoD even exists means that you guys are still working on better weapons."

"It mutated," Stark said. "As soon as it hit the atmosphere. We're still not sure how or why it did; not even the handful of Consortium members that the government has managed to capture know exactly what happened. What we do know is that the way vasopressin controls aggression in some animals is similar to the way it affects mating instincts in others. Instead of lowering the aggression of humans, it biologically altered us and the way we...interact as a species."

Jack's brain was stuck on 'mating instincts'. Alphas, omegas...it was all starting to make sense. Sometimes it was useful to have a house that refused to show anything but Animal Planet when she was mad at him about something.

"What about the bonding?" he asked. "I keep hearing about it."

"Pair bonds," Fargo put in, nodding.

"Bond mates," Jo added.

"We're not really sure about the science behind that one either." Stark looked pained as he admitted that; like he should be able to know everything just because he was Nathan Stark.

"It began not long after ABO day," Grace said and at their confused expressions explained. "Alpha, beta and omega; that's what everyone became. The alphas began to seek out omegas and it quickly became obvious that they were searching for one person in particular; the omega most compatible with them. Once they found that omega a bond was formed between them. Some people claim that it's a linking of their souls."

A snort from Stark showed what he thought about that but Grace ignored him.

"Once an alpha finds their omega, and vice versa, they have to be together. It doesn't matter if they're already in a relationship, all they can see is their bond mate and keeping them apart can cause physical pain," Grace continued. "I'm sure you can imagine the chaos that caused; especially when you throw in the fact that the shock of the sudden change in biology caused everyone who presented as an omega to go into heat immediately."

"Christ," Jack muttered.

He wasn't sure what was more disturbing; people going into heat or so many people doing it at the same time. No wonder Stark said that it almost destroyed the world, especially if no one knew what was actually happening to them.

"What about betas?" Henry asked. "You've mentioned alphas and omegas bonding but not what happened to be people who became betas."

"Betas were the people least affected by the changes," Grace told him with a smile. "We don't have the urge to mate in the way the others do and we don't bond. We do still have the ability to sense dynamics in other people and can instinctively tell if alphas and omegas are bonded or unbonded as soon as we meet them. It's a change in pheromones that we can all pick up on."

"You are a beta?" When Grace nodded Henry looked thoughtful. "So I'm...Henry is a beta too?"

"No, he's an alpha." She hesitated. "Kim was his omega...he's still not completely over that loss but what we have is good. It helps with his pain and, even though I know he'll never love me the way he loved her, he does love me and we make each other happy."

Everyone deliberately averted their eyes and gave Henry and Grace a moment to deal with that confession.

Eventually Stark cleared his throat. "While we're on the subject...our Allison is obviously an omega bonded to Isaac and Jack Carter is a beta."

"Yes, normal!" Jack cheered and held out his fist to Grace who gave a surprised laugh and bumped her own fist against it.

Stark rolled his eyes and then looked at Fargo. "It goes without saying that the alpha/omega structure is geared for breeding, both in the animal kingdom and with us. But by some unusual quirk, just over 5% of the omega population are actually male."

Fargo paled and his eyes grew wide as Stark smirked. "Don't worry, Fargo, your counterpart can't actually get pregnant; the biology wasn't altered that much."

"He's an omega?" Fargo squeaked. "With the heat thing? Oh my god!"

"Hey, is that why Fargo lives with you? Not the heat thing; the omega thing." Jack frowned at Stark. "Well, I hope not the heat thing."

"I think I have a bit more self control than to pounce on the nearest omega in heat," Stark told him, archly. "The majority of alphas look at omegas as something special, something to be protected. It's another one of those instinctual things and Fargo's father is no different when it comes to his son. When I brought Fargo to Eureka, I promised his father that I would adopt that role in his stead and I take my responsibilities seriously. Fargo is under my protection here."

Jack nodded thoughtfully; he was going to have to read up on this stuff more fully when everyone left, this entire reality was just complicated. "Are you saying that you actually keep your Fargo out of trouble?"

"I wouldn't say that," Stark replied wryly. "He has a knack for pressing buttons he shouldn't."

Jack laughed. "Sounds familiar."

"Hey!" Fargo protested until Jack gave him a pointed look. "Yeah, okay. They're just so shiny."

"There's one last thing we should go over before we all leave," Stark said, looking at Grant.

Abruptly, Jack realised that Grant hadn't joined in the conversation at all and that the man was looking more than a little nauseated as he stared into the distance, lost in thought.

"As I mentioned earlier, the DoD has been able to capture a few Consortium members since ABO day and have managed to get some, if not much, information out of them," Stark continued and Jack could see Grant tense infinitesimally. "You must really like founding stuff, Dr Grant. First Eureka then a group of the most dangerous terrorists the world has ever seen."

Grant's shoulders slumped and he spoke quietly. "It wasn't supposed to be this way; we were going to be a force for good." He looked at them all imploringly. "You have to believe me. The bridge device, we were going to use it to go back and stop the atomic bomb from being created. I would never...we wanted to stop it all not...not do this!"

One thing that Jack was really good at, ever since his days as a US Marshall, was reading people. Despite his intense dislike of Trevor Grant, he could see the genuine distress of the other man and almost felt bad for him.

He sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Is his involvement with the Consortium common knowledge?"

"No," Grace said, crossing her arms. "But that doesn't mean we can just let him go wandering about in the most advanced town in the world."

"Fair enough." Jack nodded; Grant had proved himself untrustworthy even before this. "So what do we do? We can't hand him over to the DoD without giving ourselves up too."

"We could keep him locked up," Jo suggested.

"I'm not letting him set foot in Global and people are going to notice if someone's locked in the cell at the Sheriff's station indefinitely," Stark pointed out.

"House arrest?" Allison tried.

Grace looked at Henry. "You know, we're going to need his help if we want to get the bridge device to work again."

Henry nodded slowly. "If we can get it moved to the garage we can use that as a workspace without people wandering in. I'll make sure all the other projects are taken out of there."

"I'll take him into my custody," Grace told the group then spoke directly to Grant. "If there's the slightest sign that you're working against us..."

Grant held his hands up. "I won't. I want to fix this and I can if we get the bridge device working."

Grace stood up and looked at Andy. "Can you get him set up with a tracking anklet and then take him to our house?"

"No problem, Dr Monroe," Andy answered and then escorted Grant from the bunker followed by Henry and Grace who were discussing what they needed to move around in the garage.

Allison took the opportunity to leave as well, promising to give the kids a hug from Jack.

When she'd gone, Jack turned to Stark and nodded his head towards the other side of the house. "Stark, a word?"

Stark followed Jack until they were out of hearing distance of Jo and Fargo and then looked at Jack curiously.

"You don't think the bridge device can be fixed do you?" Jack asked him quietly.

Stark raised his eyebrows in surprise. "There's always a chance."

Jack shook his head. "Don't bullshit me, Stark. We needed to know about the whole ABO thing in order to fit in but giving us the history lesson? If we weren't going to be here for very long, you wouldn't have bothered and you definitely wouldn't have announced to the world that Jo was your cousin."

Stark just looked at Jack for a long moment then sighed. "That device has been studied for over sixty years and no one could figure out how to make it work. I think that the unusually high solar flare activity that Henry mentioned is what made it successful this time. That's something we can't recreate and there isn't another event like that predicted to happen within our lifetime. So, no, I don't think you'll be able to leave."

"Okay." Jack looked past Stark towards Jo and Fargo. "Okay," he repeated, feeling numb.

He startled when Stark put a hand on his arm. "I am sorry, Carter, and I'll do whatever I can to help you all settle in here."

Jack just nodded, unable to say anything as the full realisation of just how very fucked they were hit him. They were stuck in this bizzarro world where they were completely lost and out of their depth. Even after Stark, Jo and Fargo had left, Jack just sat on the sofa as the memories of what they'd left behind cycled through his head. It was only at SARAH's concerned prompting that Jack managed to force down a meal before dragging himself to bed.

* * * * * * * *

By the next morning he had reached a kind of...maybe not peace with it exactly but more of an understanding that this was how things were going to be now and he couldn't change it so he'd just have to deal with it. It helped that he managed to reach Zoe before her morning classes and had his first proper conversation with her since his little trip through time. That had done a lot to settle his fears that she might have changed as well.

Jack was on forced sick leave for at least another three days and he spent them all the same way; Jo and Fargo would meet him at Dr Olsen's office for their check-ups before the three of them returned to the bunker for the rest of the day. None of them were up to braving the town yet and so they used the time to quiz SARAH on this new reality.

Apparently the whole 'no touching' thing really only applied to bonded omegas and was due to the fact that alphas were ridiculously possessive; to the point that they'd actually hit someone who touched their omega without permission. But as a rule of thumb, any touching between strangers was generally kept to a minimum.

Betas really were the 'norms' of the dynamics, which made Jack grin; he'd always been the norm of Eureka so there was no change there. Stark was apparently an alpha which was no surprise to anyone and when they all talked about the way their Stark had acted in reaction to Jack and Allison's flirting they decided that there was really no change there either. Buffy was also an alpha as were Angel and Spike but because they were technically dead the normal ABO rules didn't apply; which was information that Jack really could've lived without but he found that he was actually enjoying Fargo's company and couldn't begrudge him the chance to look up his favourite obsession.

It took them up until the second evening to work up the nerve to ask SARAH about all the mating stuff; they also made sure that they were well stocked with alcohol. When the AI informed them about alphas' knots Jack actually spat a mouthful of beer over the coffee table. Knots! Seriously, they had knots! Luckily Fargo managed to stop SARAH before she flashed one of her helpful animations up on the screen. Jo was laughing so hard at both Jack and Fargo's reactions that she had to put her head on Jack's shoulder to try and catch her breath and when they found out about certain aspects of sex with a male omega, Jack started laughing right along with her. Even when he managed to sober up a little, all it took was Fargo's horrified "Self lubricating? How does that even work?" to set him off again.

They made a pretty decent dent in the alcohol supply after that and Jo and Fargo had to call Stark to let him know that they would be crashing at the bunker overnight. Something they all paid for when he showed up ridiculously early the next morning.

"Urrrrgh!" was all Jack said when he walked down the stairs and saw Stark smirking at him from the sofa.

"You've got no one to blame but yourself, Sheriff," Stark told him in an overly cheerful and definitely too loud voice.

Jack didn't dignify that with an answer, just grabbed a cup of coffee from SARAH and then dropped his aching head to the blissfully cool countertop. He soon made out the shuffling noises of the other two joining him downstairs accompanied by the sound of Stark's laughter.

"You three make a sorry picture," he said. "Perhaps we should take video surveillance of this to use at the high school; it's enough to stop anyone from trying alcohol."

"Bite me!" Jack muttered into the countertop; it wasn't his best comeback but at this point he was happy he'd managed actual words.

"Well, you'd better pull yourselves together quickly. We've got to go see Olsen and then, as it's Sunday, we're all having breakfast at Cafe Diem."

Jack's head shot up to frown at Stark, then he groaned as the too quick movement made him feel as if his head was actually going to explode.

"Stay'n here, sir," Fargo said as he stared balefully into his coffee cup.

"No, you're not," Stark told him. "You've hidden out for long enough; it's time to rejoin the town. Henry and Allison have and they're fitting in just fine."

Jack glared at him. Henry and Allison had spouses to ease the way and cover for any slip-ups.

Stark sighed. "Okay, how's this? You all agree to spend the day outside in the world and I'll let you have some of Taggart's closely guarded hangover cure." He reached into his pocket and removed three vials of purple liquid.

All three of them eyed the vials Stark was holding up with suspicion.

"Has it been tested?" Jack asked. "Because I'm not going to be the guinea pig for one of Taggart's experiments."

"Fully tested," Stark assured them. "And successful enough that he now has to keep them under lock and key to stop lushes like you lot from stealing them."

Jack looked at the other two. Fargo was already inching towards Stark and the supposed miracle cure and Jo definitely looked torn between snatching one of the vials or curling up somewhere to die. As for Jack, he felt so bad that, despite his protests to the contrary, he probably would have been willing to be a guinea pig if it meant his head would stop hurting.

"Fine," he gritted out, ignoring the highly amused look on Stark's face as he handed over the cure. It started to work almost immediately and Jack sagged against the counter in relief. "Holy shit! Are you marketing this stuff? You'd make a fortune!"

"Taggart will never let that secret go," Stark replied. "It's given him god-like status in Eureka. Also there are the pesky moral implications of allowing people to drink without consequences."

"Right." Jack nodded, marvelling at the fact that there wasn't even a twinge of pain as he did so.

"Oh wow," Jo said, straightening from her slump. "I feel like I could run an assault course right now, no problem."

"How about you just run upstairs and get changed?" Stark said, handing her and Fargo some bags which Jack assumed contained some spare clothes.

"Sir, yes sir!" Jo gave him a cheeky grin and jogged away.

Jack smiled at the sound of Jo and Fargo trying to trip each other up on the stairs.

"They seem better," Stark commented. "And not just from the hangover."

"Yeah, I think they're coming to terms with it," Jack said.

Stark looked surprised. "You told them?"

"No." Jack shook his head. "But Fargo's a genius and Jo's smart enough to figure it out on her own."

"The other's haven't," Stark pointed out. "They still think they can get home."

"Grace is desperate to get her Henry back and Grant is desperate to stop what the Consortium did." Jack gave Stark a knowing look. "But I'll bet you that Henry knows that we can't and Allison is probably hoping that we can't."

Stark obviously wanted to ask him about that but let it slide. Instead he asked. "What about you? Are you coming to terms with it?"

Jack smiled. "Zoe's still Zoe and she still seems to like me so that's all I need."

With that he headed back upstairs for a quick shower and a change of clothes.

Cafe Diem both was and wasn't as bad as Jack expected. The place did come to a standstill when the group first entered and everyone there registered the lack of dynamics, then there was a lot of whispering and staring when they settled down into a booth. But Vincent was still the same old Vincent and he immediately made a beeline for them, glaring at the staring customers on his way.

"Sheriff, Fargo, it's good to see that you're both okay," he told them with a warm smile.

"Vincent, I'd like you to meet my cousin, Jo," Stark smoothly introduced the two of them and subtly covered Jo's hand when he seemed to sense that she was automatically about to hold it out for Vincent to shake. "Vincent makes the greatest food you'll ever taste. Order anything and he can make it."

"Anything, huh?" Jo asked, playing along while Jack hid a smirk. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes at Vincent who raised an eyebrow in return. "How about coconut fish and kumara cakes with eggplant kasaundi?"

"Well, it sounds like someone's been to New Zealand lately." Vincent beamed at her. "A challenge; I think I'm going to like you. The usual for everyone else?"

Jack just nodded; he didn't want to say no and then accidentally order whatever his usual was. He really hoped it was pancakes though.

"How long have you been waiting to use that one?" Fargo asked Jo.

"A couple of weeks," Jo told him with a grin. "I've been looking up cuisines of the world."

"It's an old game," Jack explained at Stark's quizzical look. "She's been trying to come up with something he can't make ever since I first got to town."

Stark chuckled. "I almost wish that I could've seen what else you had him make for you."

"Oh, there have been some good ones," Fargo said. "Remember the blood pudding?"

Jack shuddered at the recollection of Jo, Vincent and Taggart eating it with gusto while the rest of the cafe looked on in horror. Zane had refused to kiss Jo for a week after that one.

They all kept up the small talk and Jack slowly began to relax as they stopped being such a fascination for the fellow diners. He could see Jo and Fargo doing the same and was once again reluctantly impressed by Stark and his insistence that they join him. Not only did it help them try and settle into this new Eureka but he was making a statement about Jo and Fargo, his 'cousin' and the omega under his protection, and the fact that the great and powerful Nathan Stark didn't give a damn if they had dynamics or not. From experience Jack knew that the town tended to follow Stark's example and that he had just effectively shut down a lot of the trouble that might have been headed their way.

He pushed his breakfast around his plate and looked at Fargo's pancakes longingly. Apparently this Jack Carter usually had Huevos Rancheros and Jack idly wondered how that came to be, because he couldn't imagine any version of himself who would want to eat tortillas for breakfast. Did all the versions of Jack Carter start out the same and gradually change because of different experiences or were they different as soon as they were born?

He looked up from his introspection when he sensed someone approach the table.

"Do you mind if we join you?" Allison asked and over her shoulder Jack could see Isaac collecting some spare chairs.

With a soft smile, Stark lifted Jenna out of her pushchair and placed her in his lap while the other three settled into the chairs and Isaac gave their orders to Vincent.

"It's nice to see that you've finally left the bunker," Allison commented.

"Hey, there was a lot of information that we had to read through," Jack tried to protest but Stark's snort cut him off.

"I had to bribe all three of them to get them out of there," he informed Allison and Isaac.

Isaac laughed. "With what?"

"Taggart's miracle cure," Stark said wryly as he took Jenna's stuff toy from her hands and walked it along the table in front of her.

"Been hitting the bottle?" Isaac raised an eyebrow. "Can't say that I blame you, actually. So what pushed you over the edge?"

"You really don't want to know," Jack said at the same time that Fargo answered;

"Anatomy."

Jo started snickering again at the memory, Jack had to look down at his plate to hide his own smile and he could see Fargo's shoulders start to shake from the corner of his eye.

"Oh, Jesus," Stark grumbled. "How old are you three?"

At that they burst into full out laughter and even Allison began giggling behind her hand.

Isaac shared a commiserating look with Stark but Jack could see the corners of his mouth twitching slightly.

They all kept things pretty light hearted throughout the rest of breakfast although Jack noted that Isaac paid close attention to any interaction between Jack and Allison so he wasn’t very surprised when, at the end of the meal, Isaac managed to invite himself to Jack’s house to watch a game later that day.

He showed up with a six pack of beer which was a good start and Jack busied himself with putting it in the fridge while Isaac settled in front of the TV screen.

“So I understand that you kissed my wife,” Isaac started as soon as he’d accepted one of the beers.

Jack nodded and opened his own beer. “To be fair, she wasn’t your wife at the time and she definitely wasn’t your omega so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t hit me.”

Isaac gave him a dangerous grin. “Lets see how the rest of this conversation goes before I make any promises.” He leaned back casually. “Do you have feelings for her or was it a heat of the moment thing?”

Jack sighed and decided that he was being forced to lie too much in general so he wasn't going to do it now. “Truthfully, I’ve had a bit of a thing for her since we met. I mean who wouldn’t? But the timing was never right...even now. I’m beginning to think that there’s a reason for that.”

Isaac nodded and took a long drink from his beer. “Nathan says he’s told you about the likelihood of you being able to leave. So you know that means my Allie is gone.” He paused and swallowed hard, obviously struggling to keep his emotions from the surface. “This new Allison? She can’t replace my omega just like I can’t replace her Isaac and I don’t know how things are going to work out...”

“But it won’t be made any easier if the local sheriff is panting after her?” Jack guessed.

Isaac barked out a laugh and ran a hand over his shaved head. “You’ve been honest with me, Jack, so let me be honest with you...I really don’t know at this point if it will make it easier or not. I almost feel like it could give me a decent excuse to back away. I'm not sure that I can deal with someone who looks and sounds exactly like the woman I love but isn't her.”

Jack inhaled sharply at that. Not because it would give him an opening with Allison, he meant what he’d said to Isaac about the way his thoughts had been turning in that regard, but because of what it might mean to Allison, who always would be a close friend. He remembered the awe on her face as she’d watched over the sleeping Isaac while they’d been stuck in the infirmary; she’d never looked at Jack with quite that much affection. Hell, he couldn’t remember seeing her look at Stark with that depth of affection. Isaac had obviously been the love of her life, taken away from her far too soon.

He studied the man sitting opposite him. “I think that you should give it some time,” he eventually said. “You're right, she's not your Allison but..."

"She married my best friend!" Isaac suddenly burst out and then slumped against the sofa with his eyes closed. "I apologise, this isn't why I came here. I really did intend to warn you off her...for appearances, if nothing else."

An uncomfortable silence fell over them and they both pretended to watch the pregame predictions. Jack had no idea what to say to this man who was apparently a good friend under different circumstances. He was beginning to count himself lucky that the Jack Carter from this world was single; he couldn't imagine what would've happened if he'd arrived back at the bunker to find someone waiting for him.

He thought about how Isaac had apparently helped him keep Zoe here and had an urge to return the favour and help the man who was obviously in turmoil. He almost dismissed the idea as soon as it arrived. They didn't know each other and Isaac had other people he could turn to, ones far more welcome than a total stranger who may have designs on his wife; he'd already said that Stark was his best friend except...

"You haven't told Stark about it have you?" Jack widened his eyes and looked at Isaac as the realization hit him.

Isaac didn't answer for a moment. "I don't know how," he admitted. "Nathan was the best man at our wedding, he's Kevin's godfather, Jenna's..." he broke himself off as if he didn't want to say out loud what Stark was to Jenna but then shook his head. "The lab accident that killed the Isaac in your world didn't kill me but it did leave me sterile. When Allie and I wanted another child and decided to use a donor it made sense that it be Nathan because he was already family as far as we were concerned."

Jack nodded as he saw what the problem was. "And what Allison told you has made you look at all that in a new light."

"You always were quicker than people give you credit for, Jack; I'm glad to see that much hasn't changed," Isaac said in an almost amused tone before turning serious again. "It's ridiculous, I know that. Allie and I were bonded; we were meant for each other. Nathan and Allie couldn't have had feelings for one another but..."

"But alphas are possessive, and apparently irrational, bastards," Jack finished with a knowing grin. "You want my advice? Talk to Stark; at least you'll get confirmation either way instead of letting it bubble up inside you until you end up confiding in someone you don't even know."

Isaac smiled at that and nodded. He cut a sly look at Jack. "You make a decent psychologist, Sheriff. Ever thought of switching jobs?"

Jack pulled a face, mock shuddering, and Isaac burst out laughing.

“I think I had my fill of those while I was married to one,” Jack told him. “By the way, I understand I have you to thank for me having custody of Zoe here.”

Isaac frowned. “You don’t in your reality? I thought Allison said...”

“I do.” Jack smiled. “But that’s more down to me and Abby getting along rather than people stepping in on my behalf.”

“You get along? Seriously?” Isaac sounded so incredulous that Jack had to laugh. “Although, I guess the situation would have to be different there.”

Jack nodded ruefully. As soon as SARAH allowed him to look up whatever he wanted, he’d delved further into the divorce case. It turned out that this reality's Abby was an alpha, which didn't surprise Jack in the least, and instead of separating because of Jack’s job, it had happened because Abby had suddenly found her omega completely out of the blue. According to the court statements the omega was insanely jealous of Abby's prior relationship so Abby cut off all contact with Jack, which included stopping him from seeing Zoe. It had taken three trips to court before Jack was allowed any contact with his daughter at all and that was only because she kept running away to see him; apparently the law was heavily weighted towards a happily bonded alpha/omega family rather than a single beta.

He could only imagine how angry his counterpart must’ve been at Abby and her new wife for keeping him from his daughter for so long. At least his Abby had never tried to do that; no matter how loud or hurtful their arguments had turned, he could always visit Zoe.

"It doesn't really matter." Jack shrugged. "The end result was the same and that's what counts."

Isaac smiled. "Zoe's a great kid and she's going to be an asset to Global one day; which is the only reason I stepped in, of course."

"Oh, of course." Jack laughed at the mischievous glint in Isaac's eyes.

They both relaxed and actually paid attention to the game playing out in front of them. Isaac was over the moon to discover that this new Jack was a baseball aficionado and the rest of the afternoon passed in a mixture of yelling at the TV and bemoaning other Jack's obsession with lacrosse. Jack because he just couldn't understand it and missed his collection of baseball memorabilia and Isaac because...well, because it was lacrosse. By the time that Isaac left in the early evening they were well on their way to the friendship Andy had told him about that first day and Jack couldn't even bring himself to feel bad about that.

* * * * * * * *

The following morning, Olsen cleared Jack to return to work and he probably broke the speed limit driving to the station. As useful as the past few days had been in terms of learning about this new reality, Jack hated being inactive and had been secretly worried that his status as non-dynamic would mean he'd be removed from his job. He still thought he might have been if he was anywhere other than Eureka but the townspeople were used to weirdness and rolling with the punches once they got over their initial surprise.

Andy was already waiting for him, a cup of Vinspresso in hand which Jack took with a grateful smile.

"Good to have you back, boss," Andy told him.

"Good to be back, Deputy." Jack grinned as he sat down behind his desk. "Anything urgent I need to be aware of?"

Andy started to run down the list of active cases, including but not limited to, unusual lights sighted in the sky the previous night, a dispute over insta-grow hedges and an out of control knitting machine which had been covering the town in scarves and bobble hats yet was very small and proving hard to find.

Just as Andy was updating him on the open investigation into GD's latest lab accident, the sound of a large explosion rocked the office.

"They couldn't wait until I'd been back for more than twenty minutes?" Jack grumbled as he gathered his belongings and headed out to the jeep.

Six hours later and Jack was pacing Stark's office, ranting about safety protocols and the scientists who seemed to think they were merely guidelines rather than rules they had to adhere to. Jack had soot smeared over his face and clinging to his hair, scorch marks on his uniform and an urge to shoot someone because, as it turned out, the insta-grow hedges had the slight side effect of blowing up!

"Maybe if they got more than just a slap on the wrist and 'do better next time', they'd stop to think about what they're doing!" Jack dropped his hands to his hips and glared at the man sitting behind the desk.

"They have both been reprimanded and have black marks placed on their files which, believe me, is more than a 'slap on the wrists'," Stark told him with an unconcerned expression. "I have assigned Fargo to make sure that the correct procedures are followed from now on but I can't allow the project to be shut down. This work allows vegetation to be grown quickly in the most difficult conditions; it could help put an end to hunger in desert regions."

"I think those people have been through more than enough without adding the possibility of being blown to smithereens every time they go blackberry picking," Jack snapped.

"Which is why we need to keep testing and adapting the plants," Stark told him. "You're overreacting, Sheriff. Nobody got hurt..."

"I almost got hurt!" Jack yelled. "If it hadn't been for Andy pushing me out of the way a lack of stupid dynamic would be the least of my problems. As it was, Andy's skin melted..." He held up a hand when he saw Stark about to interrupt. "I know it's not real skin but it was disturbing and gross and...really disturbing!"

Stark rolled his eyes. "Andy will be fine. He's getting reskinned and in a couple of weeks will be good as new. Now, was there anything else? Because I have a conference call to get to."

Jack stared at Stark in disbelief for a moment before turning on his heel and stalking from the office. He was obviously radiating anger because everyone skittered out of his way as he stormed across the rotunda and he only stopped when he reached the jeep and discovered that, in the time he'd been yelling at Stark, it had been wrapped in a ten foot pink and yellow striped scarf.

He let out a growl and began to try and remove the material. He was still fuming and muttering under his breath about egotistical jackasses when Henry found him.

With a small smile, Henry pulled a mini laser cutter from his pocket and sliced through the remaining pieces of scarf in seconds. "Good first day back, then?"

Jack didn't answer him, just closed his eyes, leaned back against the jeep and tried to remember why he'd been so eager to return to work in the first place.

Henry clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically. "Grace wanted me to invite you to join us for dinner tonight. We can update you on where we are with the device."

Jack was exhausted and aching from the bruises received over the course of the day, and definitely not up for a night of pretending that the device was going to work, so he gave Henry an apologetic look. "Can I take a rain check on that? I really just need to fall into bed right now."

"Sure," Henry told him easily. "Why don't you come by for the update before work tomorrow and we can postpone the dinner until later in the week?"

Inwardly cursing the fact that he was still supposed to be very interested in what they'd achieved with the device so far, interested enough to get up earlier than usual, Jack nodded wearily. "I'll bring the coffee."

"Get some rest, Jack," Henry threw back over his shoulder as he walked towards GD's entrance.

It was far too early the next morning when Jack pulled up at Henry's garage. Even though he'd gone to bed almost as soon as he'd got home the evening before, he'd been too wound up from his argument with Stark, and the subsequent dismissal, to actually get much sleep. Instead he'd quietly seethed as he stared up at his ceiling; he'd forgotten just how easily the man got under his skin. It wasn't even all the Allison thing; they just rubbed each other up the wrong way, always had.

Jack forced himself to push his lingering bad temper to the back of his mind and entered the garage. Henry, Grace and Grant were already there, standing around the familiar bridge device and talking amongst themselves.

“Jack!” Grace tore herself away from the conversation and gave Jack a quick hug, removing the tray of Vinspressos from his hand and giving it to Henry. “Grab a seat and we’ll tell you what we’ve got so far.”

Jack snagged one of the coffees before Henry moved away and then he pulled out a stool from beneath the desk. There was a whiteboard behind the device and Grant flittered around in front of it talking rapidly and pointing out equations. Grace occasionally jumped in with some notes of her own and then Henry translated it into ‘Jack speak’. Even with Henry’s explanations Jack understood it all about as well as he’d understood how the device had worked in 1947 – which is to say not very much at all. But he guessed that they’d probably expected that; the point of updating him was to show that they were still working on the problem and believed they’d made some progress so that Jack could then pass that news along to the rest of the group.

“What about the solar flares?” he asked during a lull, deciding to face what Stark had said was the biggest problem head on. “Weren’t they sort of important to the whole thing?”

Henry’s head shot up at that and he studied Jack in surprise.

"What?" Jack put on his best affronted look. "I remember stuff."

“We won’t need them,” Grant told him. “We can recreate their effects by using electromagnets, hydrogen and nitrogen to make a plasma loop. If we make it strong enough then it will interact with the device the same way that the solar flares did.”

“Do you think that’ll work?” Jack directed his question to Henry and saw the way that his friend quickly glanced at Grace before answering.

“I think it’s a long shot,” he admitted. “But the whole thing has been a long shot. Jack, the device shouldn’t have worked that first time and it definitely shouldn’t have worked the second time. I say it’s worth a try.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “Just tell the rest of us when you’re ready to give it that try.”

“Three weeks tops, sport.” Grant winked at him before turning to study the whiteboard again.

Jack rolled his eyes at the nickname and Grace chuckled as she came to stand next to him.

“He is working hard on this,” she told him and then gave Henry a smile. “Actually, they both are but I think Trevor sees this as his way to some sort of redemption. He was really shaken when he found out how the Consortium had twisted his vision.”

Jack hummed thoughtfully. He may have trouble getting past the cavalier way that Grant had tried to strand him back in 1947 but he knew that Grant’s reaction that night in the bunker had been genuine; the man had looked a breath away from being physically ill at what he’d just found out. He just hoped that when the experiment with the device failed that Grant would try and find his redemption elsewhere rather than turning back to the shady side of science.

After making his farewells, Jack headed back to his jeep only to stop short when Grant called his name. The other man had followed him outside but the tracker prevented him from moving more than a few feet from the building so Jack walked back to see what he wanted.

Grant studied the sky for a moment before turning his gaze on Jack. "I just wanted to say that I really am sorry for tricking you into swapping jackets. It was a moment of weakness and, no matter what justifications I made to myself at the time, it was wrong."

"Wow," Jack said, seeing the tense and uncomfortable way that Grant was holding himself. "That was really hard for you to admit, wasn't it?"

Grant let out an amused huff. "Not all that accustomed to being wrong, Jack. Felt kind of weird to say it."

"Yeah, yeah." Jack shook his head but there was a smile playing around his mouth. "Just get back in there and sort this mess out."

Grant's eyes suddenly turned serious. "I will, you know. I am going to put this right."

Jack struggled for something to say to that but in the end he just clapped Grant on the back and headed back towards the jeep.

He grabbed another coffee from Vincent before heading into the station. He froze just inside the threshold, went back outside and came in again but the sight was still the same. Jo Lupo in her deputy's uniform, sitting at her desk.

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialled the house while Jo sat back in her seat and watched him with an amused smile.

"Hey SARAH. Where's Zoe right now?"

"She is currently living in Cambridge studying at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology," SARAH told him, sounding a little perplexed. "Have you experienced another shift in the space time continuum, Sheriff?"

"Apparently not," Jack said. "Just wanted to double check."

"We're still in the same time line, Carter," Jo assured him as he hung up on his house.

"The time line where you are not my deputy," Jack pointed out. "Not that I'm not happy to have you back, Jo. You know that I am."

Jo grinned at that. "Graham persuaded Stark that you needed some help while Deputy Andy is out of commission and apparently Stark's cousin Jo has the relevant qualifications."

"Does she really?" Jack grinned right back, feeling his bad mood finally lift. "Looks like I lucked out then. I'm assuming that this isn't going to come back and bite us on the ass."

He looked at Jo for confirmation and she nodded. "Stark, Graham and Fargo have created a whole identity for me complete with history and the correct papers. It's not the same as my history back hom...back in the other time line; someone would notice a Special Forces soldier who was never actually in the Special Forces but they've kept it as close as they can. Fargo's sure that it'll hold up if anyone chooses to look."

"That's great, Jo," Jack told her, genuinely pleased.

He knew that she'd been worried about what she could do here...and she was even worse than he was about being idle. He guessed that had probably prompted Stark to do this more than any concern about Jack's workload; knowing Jo, she'd probably rearranged his entire house for maximum efficiency by this point.

Unsurprisingly their first callout was to GD. They arrived to find some scientist, apparently called Parrish, pacing the rotunda angrily as he waited for them.

"Oh, take your time," he snapped at them as they approached him. "No need to hurry; it's not like my life's work is in danger right now."

Jack and Jo exchanged surprised looks before Jo turned back to the irate scientist. "We're here now, Dr Parrish. Why don't you tell us what the problem is."

"The same problem it always is; Donovan!" he spat. "I know he's your little pet, Sheriff, but you have to arrest him this time. The man is a menace and I've no idea why someone thought it was a good idea to bring him here."

"Maybe because he deserves to be here," Jo said even though her face had shuttered at the mention of Zane.

She'd confessed to Jack and Fargo on one of those days holed up in the bunker, that when she'd tracked Zane down, that first day after 1947, she'd accepted his proposal. He'd just looked at her blankly, asked her who she was and told her to tell Larry that he'd have to come up with a much better prank than that if he wanted to get back at him. It had obviously broken her heart no matter how much she tried to shrug it off.

"Oh, what do you know?" Parrish looked at her derisively. "You've only just got to town. You have no idea how much shit I have to put up with because of him."

"Why don't you go back to the station?" Jack murmured to Jo as they followed the still ranting Parrish through the corridors. "I can deal with this."

She shook her head. "I have to see him some time. It's best to just get it over with; like pulling off a band aid, right?"

"Parrish, you called the cops on me? Again?" Zane laughed as the three of them entered the lab. "Oh hey, it's Stark's hot cousin with the weird sense of humour." He raked his eyes up and down Jo's body. "What was your name again?"

"Deputy Lupo to you," she replied firmly. "What's going on in here?"

"All business, I kind of like that." Zane grinned at her before turning to Jack. "I thought you said you were going to shoot him if he dragged you out here again."

Jack schooled his face into bland indifference to cover for the fact he had no idea what Zane was talking about. "I figured I'd wait and see the reason first."

"He crossed the line, that's the reason," Parrish said before crossing his arms and glaring at Zane some more.

Jack waited for him to expand on that but then he noticed that there was some bright green tape on the floor. Tape which, from the looks of it, neatly dissected the room in two with Zane sitting at his desk on one side and Parrish standing in front of a different desk on the other.

"That line?" Jack asked pointing at the tape.

Parrish nodded. "He deliberately came into my side of the room and was...dancing. All to distract me from an extremely delicate part of programming on my I-mines."

"Dancing?" Jo raised an eyebrow at Zane.

"Want a demonstration?" Zane smirked.

Jack, on the other hand, was pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. "You called us here for this?"

"Of course I did," Parrish replied. "It was a blatant infringement of the rules set out when we were placed in this lab. He has gone out of his way to provoke me and destroy the peaceful work environment I need to produce my, admittedly brilliant, results."

Jack slowly counted to ten to resist the urge to smack the scientist silly. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. The next time I'm called to this lab for anything other than an emergency..." he held up a hand to stop Parrish speaking. "An actual emergency; I'm going to arrest you both."

Both Parrish and Zane immediately started protesting loudly until Jo gave a shrill whistle that made them stop and look at her in surprise.

"You'd both better learn to get along," Jack continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Because there's only one cell in the station and I'm pretty sure you don't want to spend a night in even closer quarters."

Parrish began grumbling under his breath but Zane jogged after Jack and Jo after they left the lab.

"Hey, Jack," he called and Jack blinked in surprise because Zane never called him by his first name. "I know you've been laying low since the accident last week but we're still on for the weekend, right?"

"...sure," Jack said. He had no idea why he and Zane might be meeting up but if he tried to get out of whatever it was they were doing, it would probably bring even more attention to the fact that he was acting different to normal.

"Cool, I'll bring the beers." He grinned at Jack and then gave Jo another once over. "See you around, Deputy Lupo."

"Not if I see you first," Jo grumbled. "You have no idea what that was about, do you?" she asked Jack as they walked back through the corridors.

"Not even one," Jack admitted.

"He called you 'Jack'," Jo said. "It seems like you might be pretty good friends. Maybe you should ask someone else that you're friends with...like Graham."

Jack nodded. "That's not a bad idea; I think I'll call in and see him while we're here. Meet you back at the station?" Jo nodded and walked away but Jack called after her. "You know that you're my number one though, right Josephina?"

Jo turned to talk to him while still walking backwards. "Call me that again and I'll shoot you."

"You keep saying that but you haven't yet," Jack told her. "That's how I know I'm your number one."

Jo flipped him the bird and Jack laughed as he made his way to the director's offices. Larry's desk was empty so Jack walked straight up to Isaac's office door and knocked. When Stark answered, Jack had to double check the name on the door.

"Is there a problem I should be aware of, Sheriff?" Stark asked.

"Nope," Jack replied, deliberately popping the 'p' because he knew it annoyed the other man. "Just wanted a quick word with Isaac; I can come back if he's busy."

"Let him in, Nathan." Isaac's amused voice floated out from inside the office and Stark stepped to one side allowing Jack access. "You okay, Jack?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, I just wanted to ask you something. I was dealing with a problem in Zane and Parrish's lab..."

"Did they call you out to deal with their bickering again?" Isaac interrupted, rolling his eyes. "I swear to god, they'd better put a stop to that before I bust them both down to working in the waste management division. They're driving everyone crazy."

"Maybe if you put them in different labs?" Jack suggested dryly.

"Actually they were in different labs but they're both in charge of the Non -lethal Weapons department and have to work together," Stark told him. "We figured if we forced them to share a room then they might get over this petty rivalry."

"And when have you ever known scientists to do that?" Jack asked and Isaac chuckled. "Anyway, Zane mentioned that we had plans at the weekend. Seeing that I have no idea what he's talking about, Jo suggested I ask you if you know."

Isaac exchanged a look with Stark. "Donovan; I knew we forgot something."

"To be fair, he was a small consideration in the grand scheme of things," Stark replied then looked at Jack. "Donovan's an omega."

Jack frowned, confused why that would matter. "Like Fargo...other Fargo."

Stark nodded. "But he didn't have the same upbringing as Fargo. Donovan's father was by all accounts, very unhappy when Donovan presented as an omega; felt that it made him less of a man."

Jack was taken aback by the flash of anger in Stark's eyes.

Isaac had a similarly grim expression. "The years of abuse from his father caused Donovan to look on his dynamic as a failing and he began to act out as a way to prove that he didn't need an alpha or anyone to look after him. The kid's brilliant but he ended up getting expelled from every school he went to and racked up quite the criminal record by the time we found him."

Apart from the omega thing, that pretty much sounded like the Zane that Jack knew in the other time line. It made him wonder if that Zane had a similar relationship with his father.

"We initially wanted to place Zane in a home with an alpha, just as Fargo lived...lives with Nathan," Isaac continued. "But he wouldn't have any of that and ran away from Eureka every time we tried. Eventually the other Carter got fed up of hunting him down and came up with a new suggestion; we get Donovan his own place and he would get together with Donovan once every couple of weeks to monitor his situation and make sure he wasn't having any problems in town. As a beta Donovan saw him as less of a threat and, to be honest, I think Jack genuinely liked the kid."

"So, it's sort of like a social worker's meeting?" Jack asked and Stark snorted.

"With those two? I seriously doubt it's that formal."

Jack gave an internal sigh of relief, he wouldn't know where to start if it had been. "Okay, I think I can cope with that."

"While you're here, Jack..." Isaac trailed off and exchanged another one of those looks with Stark who hesitated slightly before giving a curt nod. "Do you know how the experiments are going with the bridge device?"

"Why do you want to know?" Jack frowned. "I thought you said it wasn't going to work. Both of you told me that."

"We still don't think it will," Stark told him. "But, as I said, there's always a slim chance."

Jack looked between the two men warily. "Well, they're still working on it. Grant's convinced that he can fix it but I don't think Henry is." He thought back to that morning. "Grant said something about substituting the solar flares by looping something..."

Stark huffed and glared at Isaac. "Why did we even bother to ask him? It's plasma loops, Carter, and that's not going to be strong enough to compensate for actual solar flares."

"Alright, so it's still not going to work," Jack bristled from yet another insult at his intelligence. "Nothing's changed."

"Actually, something has," Isaac said. "We just got the results from yesterday's tests on everyone and you're beginning to change."

"What?" Jack felt his blood run cold.

"The chemical that caused the original ABO changes is still in our atmosphere, Jack," Isaac told him. "Obviously it's dissipated somewhat over the decades but you're still breathing it in and have been since you got here. We hoped that, because you didn't change right away, it had diluted enough that it wouldn't affect you at all but it hasn't; it's just affecting you more slowly."

"It will probably take another week, maybe less, before your biology completely changes to match ours," Stark said and, for once, he'd dropped his smug attitude. "Once that's happened, I'm not sure you'll be able to go back to your own time line even if Grant can fix the bridge device."

Jack fell back in his seat. "Do any of the others know yet?"

Isaac shook his head. "Olsen brought the results straight to us just before you got here. She seemed quite relieved that your dynamics are 'returning to normal'."

"Right." Jack gave an unamused chuckle as he rubbed a hand over the top of his head. "So we're becoming whatever our counterparts were?"

"More than likely although it's too soon to tell right now," Stark answered.

"You'll still be having your daily check-ups with Olsen so we can keep an eye on your progress," Isaac said. "I don't know how the slowed down speed of the change is going to affect you all but you need to let us know if you begin feeling unwell. I mean it, Jack. I know you hate being in the infirmary but we need to take this seriously."

"Alright." Jack nodded. "Did you want me to tell the others?"

"You may as well tell Jo when you head back to the station. I'll talk to Allison and I'm sure Nathan will break it to Fargo." Isaac looked at Stark who nodded. "As for Henry and Grant..."

"Rock, paper, scissors?" suggested Jack.

* * * * * * * *

Jo took the news as well as could be expected; by aggressively cleaning guns on her desk and glaring at anyone who walked into the station. In fact, she stayed in a bad mood for most of the next few days; which actually helped a bit with her reputation in town. Jack had a hard time to keep from laughing when Vincent commented that Jo was 'definitely a Stark' after she'd stomped out of the cafe with her latte.

Jack followed her out to the jeep, still trying to keep the amusement off his face before she hit him, and fumbling in his pocket as his cell phone went off.

“Carter.” He frowned as all he heard was static and the muted sound of Jo answering her own phone beside him. “Hello? Who is thi...”

Jack trailed off as he realised that it wasn’t normal static that he was hearing. It had a curious rhythm running through it, almost as if he was picking up a signal on an old radio. It was something he’d heard before...when he’d answered his phone in the old time line and got sent back to the 40s.

He froze, stealing a glance at Jo who had an expression of shock and recognition on her face as she held her phone to her ear.

Nothing happened and Jack let out his held breath, turning slowly on the spot.

“We haven’t gone anywhere,” he said. “Right?”

Jo nodded. “Right but it was the same call as last time.”

Jack glanced at the caller ID; Henry’s garage. “We need to get to Henry’s. Now!”

Less than ten minutes later they pulled up outside the garage or, at least, what was left of it.

Jack and Jo jumped out of the jeep and ran to Henry who was collapsed on the ground outside with Grace in his arms. They were both conscious, thankfully, but they were a little bruised and battered and had obviously been inside the garage when it had collapsed.

“Trevor...device...” Grace managed to get out between coughs.

Jack left Jo to call for help and to check over Henry and Grace while he carefully ventured into what remained of the garage to look for Grant. It looked like half of the roof had caved in but thankfully nothing had caught fire; although there was definitely something sparking somewhere. Jack moved further in, calling out for Grant when he wasn’t covering his face to avoid breathing in all the dust in the air.

He climbed over some debris towards where he remembered the device had been stored.

“Carter!”

Jack looked back over his shoulder and saw Stark slowly making his way towards him.

“Get back, Stark,” Jack shouted. “It’s not stable in here.”

“If that device is still on then it needs to be turned off before it does any more damage,” Stark called back. “Believe me, Sheriff, I’d rather stay outside and let you handle it but you have no idea what you’re dealing with.”

“Fine,” Jack grit out. “Stay behind me and step where I step.”

He waited until Stark had reached him before moving on through the rubble, looking for any sign of Grant. They finally reached the bridge device and discovered that it was the source of the electrical sparks. Even Jack could tell that the machine was destroyed; it was on its side and broken into several pieces although there was still some light glowing from within the largest piece.

Stark moved to push past Jack and examine it but a sudden ripple of the air to one side of them had Jack grabbing his arm to hold him still. Jack’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of Grant, almost entirely transparent and flickering in and out of focus. He was looking back at the two men and appeared to be saying something but there was no sound coming from him at all.

“He’s trapped,” Stark murmured. “The device had enough power to begin the process but, without the additional surge of energy from the solar flares, it overloaded before it could send you all back.”

“So why aren’t the rest of us like that?” Jack asked.

“Proximity to the device, maybe," Stark said. "I’ll need to examine it before I can give you a conclusive answer.”

Jack nodded. “So how do we get him back to normal?”

Stark shook his head. “Even if we knew how to do that, the bridge device is broken...”

“No,” Jack broke in. “You can do it. You’re Nathan Stark! You can fix this; I know you can.”

Stark looked at him in surprise. “While I’m flattered and frankly astounded by your faith in me, our foremost expert in the bridge device is the one trapped by it.”

“Come on, Stark,” Jack kept going stubbornly. “This is your field, right? Quantum...time...stuff? I mean, you’re not going to give up without even trying are you?”

Stark gave Jack a very odd look but eventually nodded and knelt down to look at the device. “Maybe I can adjust the parameters enough that...hmm...” He leaned closer and began to fiddle with something inside metal casing.

Jack turned back to Grant and blinked in surprise when he could suddenly hear the other man’s voice.

“...it off before it gets any worse.”

“I can hear you!” Jack exclaimed to Grant and then looked at Stark, grinning when he saw the smug expression on his face. “I knew you could do something.”

“You need to turn the device off!” Grant said; his voice tinny and sounding as if it was coming from far away. “Right now!”

Stark frowned at that. “Dr Grant, if we turn this off then we’ll lose any chance of making you fully corporeal again.”

“There’s a build up of virtual particles that’s increasing in density the longer the device stays on,” Grant told them.

Stark swore and Jack looked at him in confusion.

“Virtual particles are a result of quantum tunnelling; what Grant was attempting to do as a way to get you back to 1947,” he explained to Jack. “But a build up of them, the way that Grant is describing, that could potentially cause a black hole.”

“Not potentially, that’s exactly what’s going to happen,” Grant said. “And it’ll swallow the whole town, maybe more.”

“There’s got to be another way to fix it,” Jack protested. “Can’t we just...disperse the particle whatsits somehow?”

“Jack...there’s no time,” Grant implored. “Please. There’s too much suffering on my conscience already; I can’t be responsible for causing even more. You have to turn it off.”

Jack looked desperately at Stark but the other man shook his head sadly. “He's right, we have to do it.”

Tightening his jaw, Jack nodded and Stark immediately turned back to the device.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get you all home, sport,” Grant told Jack, his form already beginning to fade.

“You tried, Grant” Jack replied. “That counts for a lot.”

Grant smiled. “Tell Henry and Grace that I...”

The scientist completely disappeared from view and there was a whine as the device powered down and finally turned off.

“I’m sorry, Carter,” Stark said, standing and placing a hand on Jack’s shoulder.

Jack nodded numbly and then started to pick his way back over the rubble to get back outside.

GD’s response crew were just pulling up and a medical team were already checking over Henry and Grace. Fargo and Allison were also there, presumably for the same reason that Jack and Jo had headed to the garage. Jack guessed that they'd brought Stark along with them and that's how he'd arrived so quickly.

Stark immediately took charge of the GD teams, ordering the remains of the device to be taken back to Global once the building had been stabilised. Jack waited until the medics had finished checking the various cuts and bruises on Henry and Grace before approaching them. Allison, Fargo and Jo joined them and in a quiet voice Jack explained what had happened to Grant as best he could; enough that the others were able to fill in the actual science behind it for themselves.

Grace looked devastated; not only at Grant’s death but also because she knew that she’d lost any chance of getting her husband back. Allison sat down to comfort her while Henry explained to them what had happened that morning.

Apparently once they’d been informed that their biology was being affected the longer they stayed in that timeline, Grant had become completely obsessed with getting the bridge device to work before it was too late. He’d begun to stay in the garage working on it long after Henry and Grace had called it a day and often worked through meals to the point that Grace had to drag him back to the house to eat something.

That morning, for the first time in days, Grant had seemed much more relaxed and told Henry that he was close to a breakthrough. He’d suggested that they start initial testing after lunch but Henry’s phone began to ring when he and Grace were still in the kitchen preparing the food. As soon as Henry recognised what the call meant, they’d both run to the garage only for the building to begin shaking before they’d even reached Grant and the device. Grant had yelled at them both to get out and was trying to shut the device down when the ceiling had started to cave in. Henry managed to drag Grace out of there before it collapsed completely.

“I don’t understand why he didn’t wait for us,” Henry said, his eyes fixed on the remains of the garage. “Two of us would’ve been able to shut it down safely.”

"He knew it was a Hail Mary pass,” Jack told him. “Grant was running out of time and he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt if it went wrong.”

Henry sighed and nodded then he coaxed Grace into going back to the house so that she could grieve in private, without the GD teams watching her.

Jack and Jo went back to the station and the rest of the day was quiet for once. Jo, knowing how hard any death in the town hit Jack, kept quiet and let him work through it by himself; although she did keep placing cups of coffee and a plate of sandwiches on his desk. She also volunteered to be on call that night and Jack couldn’t find it in him to argue so he was just logging off his computer at the end of his shift when Stark called him and demanded his presence at GD before he went home.

“This had better be good, Stark,” Jack told him as he walked into Stark’s office. “I’m in no mood for GD’s usual brand of bullshit. I just want to go home and pretend this day didn’t happen.”

Stark raised an eyebrow at the unorthodox greeting and then shook his head, reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk. He removed a bottle of expensive looking whiskey and a couple of tumblers.

“You’re not the only one who’s had a shitty day, Carter. Nor are you the only one who feels responsible,” he said as he poured them each a measure of the whiskey. “I figured that, after what happened, we could both use a drink.”

Jack watched him with a frown. “You ordered me here for a drink?”

“I didn’t order you here, Sheriff. I requested your presence,” Stark told him.

“Your requesting sounds an awful lot like ordering,” Jack grumbled as he finally took a seat.

“I guess that’s where I’ve been going wrong on all my dates,” Stark smirked and Jack looked at him in surprise. Did Stark just make a joke at his own expense?

Stark handed him a tumbler and then leaned back in his seat with his own. “There really was no way to save him, you know. Not in the time we had.”

“I know,” Jack replied. “Well, not know because it was all a bit over my head but when you, Grant and Henry all come to the same conclusion; then it has to be true.”

“You always have to double check with Henry about any decisions I’ve made,” Stark complained but there wasn’t much heat in it and Jack was too tired to be anything but truthful.

“I don’t double check them; he just explains them to me in a way that I'll understand, something you won’t do most of the time.”

Stark looked a little surprised by that admission. “Good to know. So do you want to explain to me why you were so adamant that I could save Grant?”

“Not really.” Jack shrugged and it was true, that wasn't a conversation he wanted to have at all.

“Was it because of something your Stark did before he died?” Stark persisted and at Jack’s look he explained, “Allison told Isaac who told me. I’d already figured it out for myself though; you all looked like you’d seen a ghost that day in the infirmary.”

Jack nodded as he took a sip of his drink; they probably had.

“Actually it was more to do with the way our Stark died,” he eventually admitted when Stark kept staring at him. “I always thought if it had been me who went into the chamber instead of him...”

“You thought he could’ve brought you back,” Stark finished. “And you wanted me to prove that by fixing what happened to Grant.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, his throat suddenly hoarse.

“It wouldn’t have proved anything,” Stark told him, his voice sympathetic. “We’re different people and the situation with Grant was definitely different to what I’ve been told about your Stark’s death.”

“I know that, I do.” Jack sighed. “I just can’t seem to let go of what happened, you know? I’ve been trying for years.”

“Because you were friends?” Stark asked and Jack snorted.

“Oh, hell no!” He laughed. “We both wanted Allison and so we fought constantly. We must’ve driven her crazy; each trying to flirt with her better than the other one could.”

Stark laughed as well. “Over Allison? I know that Isaac said I was married to her but I just can’t imagine it. Allie was like a sister and very much not a love interest.”

“I guess it helps that she bonded to your best friend,” Jack pointed out and Stark smiled in agreement. “I’d say that this whole ABO thing makes knowing who you should be with a lot easier but I’ve read all about your Carter’s divorce.”

“No, definitely not easier,” Stark said, his expression suddenly serious again. “Just a different set of problems to deal with.”

Jack instantly wanted to kick himself; they’d actually been getting on for once and now he’d put his foot in his mouth somehow. “I’m sorry, I just...”

Stark waved him off. “It’s okay. It’s been a tough day and I’m pretty exhausted; I don’t usually let it bother me.”

“Let what bother you?” Jack asked, genuinely curious, then winced and cursed the fact that when he was really tired he lost his brain to mouth filter. “Forget it; you don’t have to answer that.”

Stark studied him for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. “I was referring to my status as unbonded. I usually don’t let it bother me but sometimes it hits me at unexpected moments.”

Jack nodded as he processed that. “Because you know there’s someone out there and you just haven’t found them yet.”

“There’s no one out there, Jack,” Stark gave him a sad smile. “When I was in college and, I suppose you could say, more romantically inclined, I developed an alpha/omega compatibility programme; AOCP. It was designed to help alphas and their omegas find each other using a series of algorithms and...” He stopped and looked at Jack who knew that his eyes had glazed over slightly at the word ‘algorithm’. “It’s not important how it works just that it does. Even back then, in its initial crude form, it was successful 89.2% of the time and it’s been improved many times since then. It’s never found my omega.”

“But that doesn’t mean anything,” Jack protested. “You can’t rely on a computer programme to find the person meant for you!”

Stark chuckled. “It’s more than just a computer programme; it takes into account personalities, environmental effects, DNA... It’s how Isaac and Allison found each other; he was one of my first test subjects. The refined version is used all over the world and it’s actually what won me the Nobel Prize.”

“Okay, so that’s kind of a big deal but still...I don’t buy that you just give up hope just like that,” Jack said. “You’re the most stubborn guy I’ve ever met.”

“Alphas outnumber omegas by 8%. That’s before you even take into account the fact that, if my omega was one of the 92% left, they could’ve died before we met or that they’re someone like Donovan; an omega who has zero interest in finding an alpha and who refuses to take part in the AOCP,” Stark told him. “At some point I just had to face reality.”

Jack frowned. “So that’s it? You just gave up and decided to be alone?”

Stark looked genuinely amused at that. “Jack, I’m rich, powerful and pretty damned attractive; I’m rarely alone if I don’t want to be. “

“Just when I was beginning to see more than just an egotistical bastard.” Jack rolled his eyes.

“It’s true." Stark shrugged unrepentantly. "And I'm a Nobel winner to boot."

"Yeah, yeah. You're the Clooney of the science world, I get it," Jack grumbled as Stark smirked at him. "I still think it bothers you more than just 'sometimes', though."

"And I think that you and your Stark were friends; that's why you can't let it go," Stark shot back.

"We really weren't," Jack assured him.

"But could you have been?" Stark asked. "If Allison wasn't in the way?"

Jack opened his mouth to say 'no' but then he remembered that night he and Stark had fought their way through GD. The snarking had been less vicious and a lot more fun without Allison around to impress.

"I don't know," he admitted then gave Stark a sly look. "You saying you want to be my friend, Stark?"

Stark laughed. "Firstly, we're off the clock so I think you can call me Nathan. Secondly, how do you know that I'm not? I could've been great friends with our Carter."

"Were you?" Jack asked in surprise.

Stark looked at him for a long moment. "No," he answered eventually causing Jack to grin triumphantly. "But you're not him. You're not as closed off. You trusted me today, Jack, without question; he never would've done that."

"So you do want to be my friend, Nathan." Jack teased.

"I think friend is pushing it," Nathan replied. "I just believe we could have a better working relationship than I had with Carter."

"Okay, I'm all for that but I'm not going to suddenly start backing down if I think you're wrong," Jack warned him.

Nathan smiled as he took another sip of his whiskey. "I wouldn't expect you to. Where would be the fun in that?”

Jack snorted and rolled his eyes before surprising himself with an enormous yawn.

“On that note, I think we should probably call it a night,” Nathan said wryly and Jack nodded in agreement.

He finished the last of his drink, thanked Nathan and headed home feeling a lot better than he had since before racing to Henry’s garage. Not that it stopped the nightmares about Grant's death which he knew from experience that he'd be having for a while yet.

* * * * * * * *

The next couple of days saw Jack and Jo caught up in one of those cases that could only happen in Eureka. For some reason, which was apparently very important and sciencey but that Jack thought was just an excuse to play God, Taggart had made some super smart squirrels. And, of course, they’d escaped from his lab.

After stealing not only every nut but every nut based item from Cafe Diem’s freezer, much to Vincent’s horror, they had moved onto people’s houses. The station had been inundated with reports of broken valuables that the super squirrels had left behind in their pursuit of treats yet they, themselves, had proved almost impossible to find. Eventually, late in the afternoon of their second day of tracking them, the three of them had figured out that the squirrels were actually hiding out in the air ducts of GD.

“Clever little buggers,” Taggart had said proudly. “Hiding in the very place they escaped from; the last place anyone would look.”

Jack had given him a withering look before heaving a sigh and climbing into the tunnel. He really hated those air ducts.

The squirrels didn’t go down without a fight and Jack was covered in tiny claw marks by the time he made it back to the station that night. Nathan was lounging in Jack’s chair, reading something on the PDA in his hand. He made a few final taps on the screen before looking up at Jack, his eyebrows rising as he took in Jack’s appearance.

“Don’t say it!” Jack pointed a finger at him and then stomped across the room to pull a spare t-shirt from his locker because his uniform now had hundreds of small tears in it. “What are you doing here, Stark?”

“We’re back to 'Stark' already?” Nathan asked.

“When the inmates of that lunatic asylum you’re in charge of ruin my day again, then I’m within my rights to call you whatever the hell I like, Stark,” Jack snapped at him as he yanked off his shirts, wincing as the movement pulled on the cuts littering his torso.

“You should get those checked,” Nathan said, eying the injuries.

Jack was pulling on his clean t-shirt but faltered for a moment when he thought he saw something other than concern flash in Nathan’s eyes. It was gone just as quickly and Jack mentally shrugged, dismissing it as a trick of the light.

“Seriously, why are you here?” he asked with a sigh.

Nathan hesitated. “Allison’s gone into heat,” he eventually said. “Her dynamic is fully in place.”

“Wow.” Jack rubbed the back of his head and perched on the edge of Jo’s desk. In all the squirrel insanity he’d pretty much forgotten about the growing dynamic thing; well, not forgotten exactly just pushed it to the back of his mind while he had work to concentrate on. “Is she okay?”

“She seems to be so far,” Nathan told him. “Olsen’s keeping her secluded and under observation at GD.”

Jack frowned. “She’s not with Isaac? I thought keeping an omega from their alpha was a bad thing.”

“Strictly speaking, Allison’s not his omega right now. As the heat kicked in while she was working in the infirmary, she and Isaac haven’t actually seen each other with her dynamic in place.” Nathan sighed. “He’s decided that, because of the decreased speed with which you’ve all been affected, it’s best that she remains sedated and under medical supervision during this first heat.”

“So, he’s freaking out over the idea of bonding with Allison while he’s still grieving for his Allie and is staying as far away from her as possible,” Jack interpreted.

Nathan nodded. “He’s not wrong about the fact that we should be cautious until your dynamics completely settle but...yes, he’s basically hiding out in his office.”

“And you’re hiding out here because you don’t want to go near her either,” Jack guessed. “You two were married in our reality so there’s a chance this Allison could be your omega and, oh my god, this ‘two realities’ stuff is complicated to talk about!”

Nathan gave an amused huff at that but the way he avoided Jack’s eyes told Jack he’d been right on the money about the first part.

“You’re both idiots,” he stated and, when Nathan frowned at him, he grinned. He kind of liked it when he was the smart one. “Poor Allison, everyone’s avoiding her like she has a disease or something when, really, avoidance isn’t going to do any good. She’s either your omega or she’s not; there’s no getting around that.”

Nathan stayed silent for a long moment. So long, in fact, that Jack wasn't sure if he should just get on with some work and leave Nathan to his thoughts.

"I never expected this," Nathan suddenly murmured. "I spent my whole life looking for my omega and I really had given up hope of ever finding them. I never expected that a possible candidate would suddenly appear in the form of my best friend's wife. Or that I would run away from that chance because I don't actually want her."

"Do you really not want her?" Jack asked curiously. "Or is it that you don't want to hurt Isaac?"

"I'm not going to deny that Isaac is a definite factor, as are the kids," Nathan said. "But Allison and your Stark belonged together in a different reality to this one. They shared experiences that we never did and vice versa. So, no, I don't want to be her alpha."

Jack nodded thoughtfully. "Doesn't it take that into account though? The whole mystic bonding thing? I mean, can you be bonded to someone you don't want to be with?"

"Mystic? It's not magic, Jack." Nathan rolled his eyes.

Jack waved his hand dismissively. "You know what I mean. Answer the question; like...could you end up bonding with someone you hate?"

"No, not really." Nathan looked up for a moment, obviously searching for a way to explain it. "I suppose that you could say that the bond is an extreme version of falling in love. So we only bond with people that we'd have been attracted to anyway."

"And you're not attracted to Allison." Jack pointed at him triumphantly. "Problem solved."

Nathan shook his head. "It's not that easy, Jack. This is a very unusual situation. Under normal circumstances, I'd fall for my omega as soon as I met them; there would be no awkward history or any of this different realities business to deal with. If you take all of that away and had us meeting for the first time, Allison is someone that I should be attracted to; a strong woman who's as smart as she is beautiful."

Jack wasn't sure how he'd become the unofficial leader of this whole time travel thing, surely it should be someone who actually understood it. But Jo, Fargo, and even Henry lately, had been looking to him for their cues on what to do while Isaac and Nathan had been seeking him out to confide in him because they couldn't talk to each other. On the one hand, it was sort of satisfying that they all trusted him that much but, on the other, it meant that he was forced to take part in a lot of these wibbly wobbly timey whimey conversations and, quite frankly, they were driving him nuts.

"This is making my head hurt," Jack complained, rubbing his forehead.

"I'd comment on that but it's just too easy," Nathan said with a smirk.

"You're too easy," Jack muttered childishly then looked over in surprise when Nathan chuckled.

"I could be, for the right person."

Jack gaped at him. "Are you flirting with me?"

"Maybe." Nathan smiled in a way that said 'definitely'.

"I...I don't even know how to respond to that," Jack said. "You don't even like me."

Nathan tutted. "Didn't we agree to be friends last night, Jack?"

"Didn't you say friends was 'pushing it'?" Jack shot back.

Nathan gave him a pointed look. "I also said that I was rarely alone if I didn't want to be."

Jack shook his head in disbelief. "Oh, you are so...you know what? There isn't even a word that covers how big your ego is; they'll have to invent a new one."

"There's nothing wrong with having a healthy ego," Nathan told him, ignoring Jack's scoff. "Do you think I'd have gone very far in this life if I hadn't shouted about my achievements? I don't hide my attributes and I go after what I want."

"Is this some new way of fucking with me?" Jack asked suspiciously. "You're bored of trying to come up with insults and decided to do this instead?"

"Is it so hard to believe that I'm attracted to you?" Stark tilted his head curiously.

"Yes!" Jack practically yelled. "We argue and we bitch at each other; we don't flirt!"

"You're confusing me with my counterpart, Jack," Nathan chided lightly. "Different life experiences, remember? Just because you had a mostly antagonistic relationship with him doesn't mean that we have to be the same."

That made Jack pause. "Are you saying...? You and the other Carter...?"

Nathan laughed. "Definitely not. Carter was...colder. It seemed that his experiences with his ex-wife caused him to mistrust most alphas. As far as I know, he was only friendly with Henry and Isaac out of all the alphas in town."

"Okay, that makes sense, I guess." Jack nodded and then frowned again. "Then why..."

"You're not your counterpart either," Nathan pointed out. "You're far more entertaining and so easy to get flustered...it's sort of adorable, really."

"I am not adorable!" Jack huffed. "I carry a gun, for crying out loud."

"And handcuffs." Nathan's eyes twinkled with amusement as Jack felt his face flush at that insinuation.

"Alright, that's enough," Jack told him firmly. "You can go hide out from Allison at your house and leave me to write up my squirrel report in peace."

"Just one last thing," Stark said as he stood up from Jack's chair.

He walked across the space between the two desks, only stopping when he was well inside Jack's personal space. Immediately Jack's heartbeat picked up and his breath hitched.

"I need a favour."

"Huh? What?" Jack blinked slowly at him and Nathan smirked.

"A favour," he repeated. "Because of Allison going into heat, Dr Olsen has also put Fargo under supervision in readiness for him doing the same. I can't go there, for obvious reason, so I wanted to ask if you would check on him in my place."

Jack listened to him, a little dazed and wondering just what he'd been expecting. "I can do that," he agreed, pleased when his voice remained even despite the turmoil in his mind.

Nathan nodded his thanks and then leaned in to speak directly into Jack's ear. "Then later, if you're at a loose end, maybe we can explore this some more."

Before Jack could even begin to formulate an answer, Nathan turned around and walked out.

"What the hell just happened?" Jack asked the empty station.

He sat at his desk to fill out the report but found that his mind kept replaying the past hour. He'd been expecting Nathan to kiss him, he realised, and if he was truthful with himself, he was a little disappointed when it hadn't happened.

He frowned. He could easily dismiss Nathan's sudden interest in him as a by product of the way Nathan was so worried that Allison was his omega; convincing himself that he was attracted to someone else so that he could pretend that there was no chance of a bond forming with Allison. But he couldn't dismiss his own reaction to Nathan's flirting. He'd never seen Nathan, either of them, as anything more than a sparring partner until the night before and even then he'd only upgraded the other Stark to a frenemy and this Nathan to a maybe friend. This was something he'd never seen coming.

It took him far longer than it should have to finish his report so it was already past midnight before he made it to GD. It always amazed him that, no matter how late the hour, there were always a few people milling around. Of course, if they were still at work at that time of night then they were deep into whatever project they were working on and tended to walk through the building muttering to themselves and ignoring everything around them. That meant that Jack didn't feel bad for getting lost in his own thoughts instead of greeting them all as he usually would.

Unfortunately, getting lost in those thoughts meant that he wasn't paying attention to his own surroundings when he entered the secluded area of the infirmary. He heard a muffled curse and just had time to register that there was a man looming over Fargo's bed before he felt a small pinch on the back of his neck. He spun around and saw Olsen standing behind him, holding a needle in her hand.

“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she said. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“What..?” Jack managed to get out before his legs gave way and he fell to the floor.

“Pack him up too,” he heard Olsen say to the unfamiliar man. “You’ll have to take him with you.”

“He’s not part of the plan,” the man replied.

Olsen huffed, apparently ignoring Jack’s struggles to get back to his feet. “He saw me, you idiot. If you leave him here then he’ll tell everyone that I’m involved. If I’m forced to leave town before we get our hands on the desmopressin experiment then all of this has been for nothing.”

“We could just kill him,” the man said. “Hide the body somewhere they won’t be able to find it.”

Jack’s head fell back against the floor and he fought to keep his eyes open against the drugs coursing through his system. He saw Olsen look down at him, apparently considering that option.

“No.” She shook her head. “He’s a beta; he’s no threat to us. Besides he could come in useful and I’m sure Barlow would like the opportunity to see an old friend.”

Beverly...the Consortium... Jack thought as the drugs finally overcame him. They were so screwed.

When he came to there was already sunlight weakly filtering in through the high windows of the room they'd been taken to while he was unconscious. He pushed himself up off the bed he'd been placed on with a small groan.

"Sheriff, thank god you're awake," Fargo jumped up from his own bed and rushed across the room.

"Fargo, are you alright?" Jack asked, running his eyes over the younger man to see if there were any injuries.

"What? Apart from the fact that I've been kidnapped?" Fargo began waving his hands about. "I went to sleep in the infirmary and I woke up here. The door's locked and quite frankly, I have doubts about the hygiene in this room and..."

"Fargo," Jack groaned.

"I'm fine," Fargo answered meekly.

Jack nodded. "Okay, so you've tried the door. Have you seen anyone yet?"

"No," Fargo told him. "I didn't wake up long before you did. How did we get here?"

"Olsen," Jack replied. "She's working for the Consortium. I walked in on her goon taking you and she snuck up behind me; drugged me with something."

Fargo visibly paled. "The Consortium? What do they want with us? Do you think it's anything to do with, you know?" He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Dum da dum, dum da dum, dum da dum..."

Jack tried not to roll his eyes as Fargo continued to quietly sing the Doctor Who theme instead of saying' time travel'. "Subtle, Fargo."

"Thanks," Fargo said. "Hey, we should come up with a code so that we can talk freely without anyone listening in.

"Yeah, you work on that, buddy, and I'm going to check out the room."

Jack climbed to his feet and worked his way around the perimeter. The room was small but very high and the placement of the windows, too high to reach, led him to believe that they were in a converted part of a warehouse or a similar building. As Fargo told him, the sturdy door was definitely locked. The top part of the door had a large hatch at head height which opened outwards and had bars on their side. The only things in the room were the two beds; nothing that they could improvise into a weapon. It didn't look like they were going anywhere anytime soon.

He dropped back down next to Fargo with a sigh.

"...and if we want to talk about Jo we should say Ripley instead," Fargo was saying.

Jack leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, only half listening to Fargo and his code; at least it was taking Fargo's mind off their situation.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when there was noise at the door. He sat up straighter and watched as the hatch opened.

"Jack, Douglas, it's good to see you again," came the friendly voice from the other side of the bars before a familiar face moved into view.

"It's Number Six," Fargo hissed at Jack, using the codeword he'd come up with for Beverly Barlow.

"I wish I could say the same, Beverly." Jack tilted his head as if in thought. "Nope, actually I don't."

Beverly chuckled. "I thought we got past your dislike of alphas."

"And now I just dislike you," Jack shot back, wondering how many of her psychiatric sessions Carter had been forced to go to. At least he'd managed to avoid most of that in his reality.

"I'm not the bad guy, Jack," she told him and Jack looked around the room pointedly. "This is just a necessary evil to get what we want. We'll let you all go unharmed after that."

"All?" he questioned; he'd thought that it had been just him and Fargo that had been brought here and he could've smacked himself for not remembering that there'd been someone else in the infirmary.

"Allison's here too," Beverly confirmed. "She's fine, you have my word. Her heat's progressing normally and we're keeping her sedated so that she's not in any discomfort while she's waiting to rebond with her alpha."

"I want to see her," Jack demanded. "Your word's not good enough for me."

"It'll have to be," Beverly replied. "Don't worry, Jack. This should all be over soon and you'll be able to see for yourself that we've treated her well. Just as well as we'll treat Douglas when he goes into heat; we're very well prepared and we've no intention of hurting anyone."

Fargo made an eep noise at the mention of him going into heat and shuffled a little so that Jack was in front of him.

"What is it that you want, Beverly?" Jack asked. "What's the point of all this?"

"Atonement," Beverly told him, suddenly sounding weary. "A way to fix the mistakes we've made."

Jack frowned and part of the conversation he'd heard Olsen having the night before came back to him. She'd mentioned an experiment, the one that Nathan had blamed for them all losing their dynamics.

"You want to undo the ABO stuff," he realised.

Beverly nodded. "We knew that Global would crack it one day, that's why we've always had people placed in Eureka. Our waiting has finally paid off."

"But it was an accident," Fargo piped up, apparently unable to help himself. "It wasn't supposed to happen."

"And it obviously didn't last," Jack added, unsure whether he should feel relieved that she didn't know the real reason why their dynamics had disappeared or annoyed that they'd been kidnapped because of the cover story they'd made up. "Our dynamics are coming back."

Beverly smiled at them. "It's a start; one that we can build on with our own research. We just need to get hold of the files from that experiment but unfortunately Graham and Stark locked it down after it affected all of you."

"So you're holding us to ransom," Jack summed up. "You honestly expect them to hand over classified information to you people?"

"We have Graham's omega who he hasn't had the chance to renew his bond with and Stark's protected omega who's about to go into heat," Beverly pointed out. "They'll give us what we want. So why don't you both settle in while we wait? Jack, bang on the door when Douglas' heat begins so that we can make sure he's kept as comfortable as possible."

With that, Beverly closed the hatch again and Jack and Fargo looked at each other in disbelief.

"How do we keep getting into these things?" Jack wondered aloud.

"We're just lucky?" Fargo guessed and Jack snorted.

There was no way they were getting out of there by themselves so they did what Beverly suggested and made themselves comfortable.

"Want to play a game?" Fargo asked.

Jack glanced around the room again. "I guess I-Spy is out."

"We could play Prime/Not Prime or...ooh...I Have Never?" Fargo looked at him hopefully.

Jack shot him a look. "I am not sharing that much of my private life with you, Fargo."

Jack sighed when he saw Fargo's disappointment so he agreed to play Twenty Questions but that died after the third time Fargo turned out to be a character from some sci-fi show that Jack had never seen. In the end, they both fell into a discussion of their favourite movies and books.

"You're telling me that's there's actually a movie called 'Sharktopus'?" Jack asked incredulously some time later.

"It's awful," Fargo said, nodding enthusiastically. "So bad that it's just hilarious; you have to watch it. A half shark, half octopus, it's like something Larry would invent because he can't come up with anything good."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure Taggart's already got plans in motion to make one so Larry's out of luck," Jack replied dryly. He shifted uncomfortably on the bed then gave in and pulled his uniform shirt off; it had been getting steadily warmer in the room the longer they were in there. "Jeez, you think they'd have put some air con in here, considering that they're so 'prepared'"

Fargo gave him a weird look. "I'm okay."

"Really?" Jack asked. "You're not one of those people who wear sweaters in the summer, are you? I always hated those people when I lived in LA; it was like they were showing off while everyone else melted into puddles."

"Uh...no. It's just not that warm in here," Fargo said. "Are you feeling okay, Sheriff? Maybe I should call someone..."

"You're not calling anyone. I'm fine, just a little warm." He batted Fargo's hand away when he pressed one to Jack's forehead. "I don't have a fever, Fargo."

"Yes, you do," Fargo told him, looking a little panicked. "You're burning up. I'm going to call Beverly; you could be having a reaction to the drugs they gave us."

Against Jack's protests, he walked to the door but his steps faltered before he reached it. He turned and looked at Jack with wide eyes.

"Umm...Sheriff, are you...I mean...umm..."

"Just spit it out, Fargo," Jack said, beginning to feel a little worried at the look Fargo was giving him.

Fargo nodded. "Do you feel...wet?"

Jack frowned in confusion. "Well, I'm sweating like a pig if that's what you mean."

"No." Fargo flushed bright red and began fidgeting. "I mean...uh...is your....umm...underwear wet?"

Jack's eyebrows reached for his hairline as he stared back at Fargo.

"I'm not being a pervert or anything," Fargo rushed on. "It could explain...you're suddenly feeling hot...warm! You're suddenly feeling warm when there's no reason for it and I've been reading up on heats and another sign of that starting is...lubrication," he finished quietly.

"But I'm a beta," Jack protested weakly because, in truth, his boxers were feeling sticky. He'd put it down to the perspiration trickling down his back but, listening to Fargo's babbling, he'd realised that he wasn't actually sweating that much.

Fargo approached warily, as if afraid that Jack was going to suddenly start yelling at him.

"There was never a guarantee that we were going to have the same dynamics as..." Fargo obviously stopped himself before he said 'counterparts' or 'the other us' just in case the room was bugged. "It was just the most likely outcome."

"This can't be happening." Jack closed his eyes and shook his head. "No, I've just caught the flu or something."

Satisfied that Jack wasn't going to explode, Fargo sat back down next to him. "You're probably right." he agreed in an unconvincing tone. "And I'm sure we won't be here much longer. Jo, Henry and Dr Stark will find us and then they can get a not evil doctor to look over you."

If Fargo was reassuring him then there was definitely something wrong and Jack wanted to be worried about that, he really did. Except, as soon as Fargo had mentioned Nathan, Jack had been bombarded with images from their encounter in the station the night before. In full Technicolor and surround sound; Jack even thought that he could smell that expensive cologne that Nathan always wore.

His hands clenched the bed sheets as a shudder tore through him. "Oh shit, it's definitely not flu."

"Sheriff?" Fargo put his hand on Jack's arm and Jack immediately recoiled as it sent pain shooting through him. "Whoa, okay I'm sorry, I won't touch you. That's weird though, all the literature I've read says that touch is only painful to an omega who's found their alpha but hasn't bonded yet. I believe that's the basis for why you can't touch an omega without permission, it's just morphed over the years to become a symbol of possession for an alpha."

As Jack listened to Fargo's nervous chatter he winced; it was confirming what his body was telling him, that if he was an omega then Nathan was his alpha. It certainly cleared a few things up concerning their most recent interactions.

Fargo noticed Jack's reaction and stared at him in surprise. "You've already met your alpha? But who...oh my god! Beverly?" He sounded scandalised. "Sheriff, I'm shocked at you; sure she's really hot but she's evil and definitely not a suitable partner for a law enforcement officer!"

"It's Nathan," Jack gritted out.

"Dr Stark?" Fargo squeaked and it was obvious that he didn't know whether to look relieved at that revelation or not.

"I saw him last night, before I went to check on you," Jack told him, desperately trying to clamp down on the thoughts running through his head. "It was...weird."

Fargo nodded as he caught on to what Jack was saying. "The dynamics have been building slowly so you were probably already giving off omega pheromones even if you weren't fully one until now. Did Dr Stark react to you?"

"Fargo." Jack groaned. "I'm really trying not to think about that right now. You need to start talking about something else; distract me with something."

"Oh. Oh!" Fargo blushed and started looking everywhere but at Jack. "Maybe I should bang on the door and get Beverly here; she said that you should do that when I went into heat...Oh wow! Do you think that I could have changed dynamic too? Because I really wasn't looking forward to that."

Jack took some deep breaths to stop himself from yelling. "Don't call Beverly; let's keep this between us for now."

"But..."

"Fargo, you've read up on all of this, right?" Jack knew that Fargo had read every scrap of information he could get his hands on so that he'd know what to expect as an omega. "You'll be able to tell if something's wrong." He looked Fargo in the eye. "I trust you."

"You do?" Fargo blinked in surprise and then nodded determinedly. "Okay, I won't let you down, Sheriff."

Jack's shoulders slumped a little in relief. He didn't think he could deal with this ridiculous heat stuff and keep up their lies under Beverly's astute eye.

"Good man," he told Fargo. "Now talk to me about something; anything but this."

Fargo took a deep breath. "Into every generation a slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a chosen one..."

Jack lay back on the bed and let Fargo's words pull him from thoughts of Nathan. Luckily Fargo was talking about his very favourite subject so every time Jack drifted a little, he would excitedly exclaim something like 'and Angel's in some weird velvet jacket! I mean, where's the leather, buddy?' and bring him back. It didn’t curb the need to go and find Nathan right now but it did at least stop Jack from wanting to hump the mattress just to find some relief.

He wasn’t sure how he managed to fall asleep but his dreams were full of skin and burning touches and intense green eyes. The sound of the hatch on the door opening caused Jack to jump awake but he stayed where he was, keeping his eyes closed and only bending the knee which was nearest the door to hide the effects of his dreams.

“Douglas, how are you feeling?” he heard Beverly ask.

“What? Fine, I’m fine,” Fargo answered. “No problems in here.”

Beverly sighed. “You don’t need to hide it from us if you’ve gone into heat. I told you that we just want to make sure you don’t suffer from any adverse effects.”

As Fargo protested once again that he was ‘fine’, Jack began to realise that he could sense Beverly. It was disconcerting and hard to quantify; he just became aware of a dominant, self assured presence which Jack could only attribute to what he knew of alphas. There was also a protective air overlaying the rest that reminded Jack of the way Nathan and Isaac were around Fargo and other omegas. He froze as he suddenly realised that was why Beverly still believed Fargo was hiding the fact that he’d gone into heat; if Jack could suddenly sense her then she could sense Jack, she just thought that it was Fargo she was picking up on.

Groaning inwardly, because there went his plan of hiding this until they got out of there, Jack sat up. “Fargo’s telling the truth; it’s not him.”

Beverly’s eyes widened as she took in Jack’s appearance. He wasn’t sure what he looked like but if it was anywhere near as messed up as he felt, then he must look pretty bad.

“But how?” she asked looking stunned.

“We don’t know.” Jack shrugged and tried for nonchalant but guessed that he missed it by a long way. “Just one of those crazy Eureka things, I guess.”

Beverly studied him for a long time before nodding. “I need to take some blood from you, Jack, so you’ll have to come over here and put your arm through the bars.”

“Uh, how about no,” Jack replied. “You want my blood come in here and get it.”

“Now isn’t the time to play games,” she told him. “Your dynamic has changed. It’s even more important that we monitor you, who knows what this is doing to your body?”

Jack chuckled humourlessly. “If it’s so important then let us go so that I can see a doctor that I actually trust.”

She frowned. “The plan isn’t going to change, Jack, but don’t make this any more difficult than it needs to be. I know that, mentally, you’re in as much turmoil as you are physically but you need to push through that and realise that this is...”

“Don’t pull that shit with me, Beverly,” Jack snapped, annoyed that she’d brought out her psychiatrist persona. “Don’t pretend that you actually care about my welfare or anything other than getting what you want, as per usual.”

“I’m an alpha faced with an omega in distress, Jack,” she told him in that gentle voice that he’d seen her use on more than a few of her patients. “Of course, I care.”

“Oh, yeah? You care about omegas? Tell that to Kim Deacon,” Jack replied evenly.

Beverly looked like she’d been slapped and why wouldn’t she? This version of Beverly Barlow believed that she’d gotten away with that death.

She opened and closed her mouth a few times before she finally shook her head sadly. “Have it your way, Jack. Douglas? Try and talk some sense into him.”

She closed the hatch again and Jack fell back onto the bed. “At least that distracted me for a little while,” he mused out loud as the adrenaline of his anger with Beverly was quickly replaced with that craving for Nathan.

This time it was even worse and pretty soon he was drifting in and out of fantasy and reality. Sometimes he was aware of Fargo talking to him in a worried voice and feeding him water from a bottle, other times Jack came back to himself to realise that he’d been murmuring Nathan’s name over and over. The sheets were soaked and sticking to him where they’d twisted around his legs and still the want inside him curled higher and higher.

Suddenly there was noise to one side of him. Recognising it as raised voices, Jack fought his way through the fog to try and make out what they were saying but it wasn’t until someone grabbed hold of him, and pain shot through his body, that Jack was able to snap out of it.

The man, who Jack now realised was the same one that had been in the infirmary, dropped Jack in surprise. “He’s pre-bonded.”

“What?” Beverly said from the doorway. “He’s been in here the whole time, I’m the only alpha he’s seen and I know that I’m not his alpha.”

“Thank god for small mercies,” Jack muttered under his breath.

“It seems as though you’re quite the mystery, Sheriff,” Olsen told him, entering the room and giving him the same considering look she had when he’d been struggling to stay awake in the infirmary. “Maybe we should keep you and find out exactly what the desmopressin experiment did to you.”

“No!” Fargo and Beverly exclaimed at the same time and then they looked at each other in surprise.

“Aside from the fact that we agreed that no one would get harmed,” Beverly said, turning back to Olsen, “they already know that Carter is being held with the other two. We have to return him along with them.”

“If we return them at all,” Olsen shot back. “The directors aren't playing ball so I think we need to take more extreme measures.”

While they were talking, Jack had been trying to take stock of the situation before the next wave of his heat overtook him. His limbs were feeling shaky and weak so he knew he was in no state to make a run for the door. Also, both Olsen and Beverly were standing between Fargo and the door so there was no chance of that, even if Jack could somehow communicate that idea to Fargo. Instead he began to study the body language of the three Consortium members looking for a weakness he could exploit there.

He was getting a different feeling about Olsen and her goon than he was from Beverly so they definitely weren’t alphas. The dominant air was missing so Jack guessed that they were both betas but the fact that Olsen was the one who appeared to be in charge, not Beverly, had him intrigued.

“You need to be more patient,” Beverly was telling Olsen. “We have the upper hand here and both Graham and Stark know it. They’ll give in soon.”

“Or they’re playing for enough time to track us down,” Olsen snapped. "You're already on thin ice for hiding Carter's condition so you don't get to have a say in this, Barlow. Franks, go and wake Dr Blake up. I think it's time for Graham and Stark to see how serious we are."

Jack managed to control himself the first time Nathan was mentioned but he couldn't help the tiny groan which escaped him the second time; it just kept conjuring up images which really didn't need to be in his head right then.

Olsen paused in her tirade and even 'Franks' stopped walking out of the room to look back at him, while Fargo just covered his face with his hand. Olsen knelt down in front of him and Jack pulled back instinctively. It didn't seem to matter though as a malicious grin stole over her face.

"Why, Sheriff Carter, your pupils are completely blown right now," she purred. "A sure sign of intense arousal that appeared when we specifically mentioned...Nathan Stark. He's your alpha, isn't he? We all know that it can't be Graham."

Jack gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the shudder that ran through him. She narrowed her eyes and grabbed his chin in her hand causing Jack to cry out in pain.

"Stop it!" Beverly stepped forward. "It's obviously Stark, there's no need to hurt him."

"Actually, there is," Olsen replied even as she let go of Jack and stood up. "Franks, take the sheriff out to the control room before you wake Blake up. It's time to contact Global."

The pain of Franks roughly dragging Jack from the room made Jack black out for a while. When he woke, he was strapped into an examination chair and Allison was in the one next to him. She was fully awake and glaring at Beverly and Olsen. Jack could see that she was determined not to show any weakness despite the tremors that were visibly running through her body. It looked as though she'd pre-bonded with Isaac in the same way that Jack had with Nathan; slowly over the past few days. Jack wondered briefly why the two them hadn't figured it out straight away then remember that Allison had been sedated the entire time until now; that must have blocked the effects on both sides.

"Nice of you to join us again, Sheriff," Olsen said, causing Allison to look at him so quickly that Jack worried she may have given herself whiplash. "Just in time for our transmission."

"Jack, are you okay?" Allison asked, concern in her voice.

"Don't worry about me; I'm just peachy," Jack replied. "Got some sleep, the chance to use up a couple of those vacation days. Plus, I now know what happened in the entire first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

Allison looked confused for a moment then her face cleared and she nodded slightly to show that she understood Fargo was there too.

Jack already knew that Allison was an omega so he didn't need to try and interpret the feeling he was getting around her. He was surprised by it though; after what he'd picked up from Beverly, he'd been expecting a sense of weakness with an omega but there was definite strength there. The overwhelming feeling though was of something precious and he kind of understood why alphas reacted they way they did around them.

"Is everything ready?" Olsen asked a woman that Jack hadn't seen before.

He glanced around the room and, besides Beverly, Olsen and Franks, there were four other people all working at control desks, all betas. There was also a camera set up facing Olsen, turned slightly away from Jack and Allison. At the woman's nod, Olsen and Franks pressed a button on their respective wristbands and their appearances completely changed.

"Personal holographic projectors," Allison murmured to him. "Stolen from GD, of course."

"Swann, make sure Barlow doesn't interrupt us," Olsen said to a big guy standing near Beverly. Olsen's voice was now a deep baritone to match her projection of an older man, while Franks looked like a pretty girl in her twenties. "Her alpha tendencies appear to be interfering with her ability to do her job. Or maybe she just has a crush on the sheriff."

Everyone snickered except for Beverly who crossed her arms with a huff, although her eyes were concerned as they swept over Jack and Allison.

Jack knew what was coming and he turned to look at Allison. "I wish I could get you out of this but I can't. So you need to stay strong, okay? Keep thinking about what will happen when we get out of here, keep your thoughts focussed on getting home to Isaac and the kids."

Her eyes widened and cut to the side to watch Olsen and Franks taking up positions in front of the camera.

She nodded determinedly and replied in a quiet voice. "I'm a mother who ran GD singlehandedly; it'll take more than these people to break me, Jack. Just listen to your own advice, alright?"

"Dr Stark, Dr Graham, you are trying our patience," Olsen began talking into the camera. "We've made our demands perfectly clear and it's long past time that you met them. This leads us to believe that perhaps you don't understand how serious we are, so it's time that we show you."

She nodded at the woman she'd spoken to before and the camera began to slowly rotate until it was pointing at Jack and Allison. Olsen walked back into shot while Franks approached Allison.

"As you can see both of your omegas are fully in heat and, yes, Dr Stark, we know about your prebond with Sheriff Carter," Olsen sneered at the camera. "You are, of course, both aware of what happens if someone other than their bondmate touches them right now..."

At that, Franks grabbed hold of Allison's upper arm and she bit her lip to stop from crying out. He roughly ran that hand up and down her arm and Jack knew that would have the same effect as someone running sandpaper over her skin. By the time Franks lifted his spare hand to repeat the movement on Allison's other arm, she was shaking uncontrollably and let out a scream.

Jack was struggling to get free of his bonds to try and go to her aid so he missed the fact that Olsen had left the camera and walked over to him. When her hand clamped down on his wrist, the unexpected pain made him cry out and stop his struggles in order to try and catch his breath. Olsen slipped her hand under his t-shirt and pushed it up to his armpits, exposing his torso, then she began to run both hands over him. Jack didn't think he'd ever felt such excruciating pain before; each touch felt like she was carving into him with a knife and every time he thought he was going to pass out from it she would stop long enough for him to come back from the edge before starting again.

"You're doing so well, Sheriff," Olsen whispered into his ear. "Keep screaming for me, omega."

The derisive way in which she said 'omega' made it clear that she thought they were so much lower than her. Jack wondered how he ever could have believed this woman was caring in any way.

"Better an omega...than a...psycho nut job..." Jack got out through clenched teeth then yelled in agony when she scraped her nails across his stomach.

"You don't yet understand your new position do you?" she hissed. "Submissive and worthless, that's what you are now. Alphas are fools to believe that omegas are anything more than that. I almost hope that Stark doesn't meet our demands, that way I can teach you how inferior you really are before we have to kill you."

Jack's fingers dug into the leather chair as she viciously clawed at his side and a fresh wave of pain washed over him.

What seemed like hours later, when she removed her hands from his chest and stepped back from him, Jack's throat was sore from screaming and the bindings were cutting into him where he'd been straining against them. He fell back against the chair panting and shaking all over. Eventually, through the slowly dissipating haze of pain, he began to make out the sound of loud banging and yelling coming from the other side of the room.

"Shut him up!" Olsen shouted and when Jack managed to open his eyes, she was glaring at Beverly.

Beverly, however, seemed to be staring at the locked door of the room Jack had been kept in with complete shock written on her face.

"Hey!" Olsen snapped and Beverly finally turned to look at her. "I said, shut him up. Use the tranq gun if you have to."

Beverly nodded and Olsen turned back to Jack. "Now, where were we?"

Jack tried to shrink back as her hands reached for him again but then his head snapped to one side as the sudden presence of a very pissed off alpha began to spread across the room. Instead of opening the hatch, Beverly had unlocked the door and Fargo jumped out, his eyes blazing and his lips pulled back in a snarl.

He locked eyes with Franks, in his holographic disguise. "Get away from them, you bitch!" he growled.

"What the fuck?" Franks squeaked and Jack couldn't help but agree.

"It looks like Jack's wasn't the only dynamic to change," Beverly called across to Olsen smugly as she picked up a tranq gun.

"Just put him down," Olsen yelled back. "What did you open the door for?"

But instead of shooting Fargo with the tranquilizer, Beverly spun around and shot Swann. At the same time, Fargo grabbed a metal pipe from the floor and leapt at Franks, swinging the pipe at his head and completely knocking him out. Then, with a loud roar, he ran after the other betas who had gotten over their initial surprise and started for the door.

"Shit!" Olsen swore and backed away from Jack as Beverly stalked across the room towards her, tranq gun still in hand. "You're going to pay for this, Barlow. The Consortium will have your head."

"Because this mission was so poorly run by you that it inevitably fell apart? I don't think so," Beverly replied, her voice calm but anger radiating from every pore. "And who's going to be able to contradict me? You just tortured two omegas on camera; you're all going into the deepest, darkest hole the DoD can find."

Olsen held her hands up in a placating manner. "Barlow...Beverly. We can still salvage this, we can get the experiment files and complete the mission. Just let me..."

Olsen wasn't able to finish what she was saying because Beverly had reached her and took her out with one very impressive punch.

"God, I've wanted to do that for months," she said conversationally to Jack and Allison as she shook out her hand. "I really am sorry that I had to let that go so far, my hands were tied."

"Stop hiding behind excuses, Beverly," Allison coughed out. "You could have stopped that if you wanted to."

"Allison, I know you believe the worst about me but I really..." Beverly paused as there was a growl from somewhere behind her. As she turned around, Jack was able to see Fargo crouched low to the ground, surrounded by the unconscious forms of the other betas, and snarling at Beverly.

Beverly sighed and said, "I'm sorry, Douglas." Then as he sprang at her, she shot him with one the tranqs and he fell to the floor with a whimper. "It's for his own safety, really. The sound of two omegas in pain triggered his dynamic and sent him feral. He won't be able to calm down until he knows that you're all home and safe but he'll be fine after that, I promise."

Jack thought it best to refrain from pointing out how she'd also promised that none of them would be hurt.

"Well, seeing as you're being so helpful, why don't you untie us now?" Jack asked, wincing at how hoarse his voice was.

"Jack." Beverly smiled at him as she walked between the two chairs. "If I let you go, you'll try to arrest me. I need to buy a little time before GD get here."

She pulled a vial and a needle from her pocket.

"Don't you dare, you bitch!" Allison rasped at her and tried to pull her arm away from the needle. It didn't budge though and she was helpless to stop Beverly injecting her. She was asleep before Beverly even moved across to Jack with a second needle.

"Wait," Jack said. "Why did you let Fargo out of that room? Why help us when it meant that you wouldn't get the files?"

She paused and looked at him. "I told you yesterday, Jack; I'm an alpha, I couldn't stand to see what they were doing to you both. Even beyond her obvious issues with omegas, Olsen could only see the prize and didn't care who she hurt to get there. Unfortunately, that particular viewpoint is shared by other members of the Consortium but I'm trying to change that, slowly."

Jack shook his head. "I don't understand. If you don't agree with them then why are you working for them?"

"My father was one of the original Consortium members, back in the 40s. When their leader, a scientist called Grant, suddenly disappeared in suspicious circumstances, a new leader stepped into the breach. One who was convinced that the government must be onto them," Beverly told him and Jack only just about managed to hold back a flinch. "He decided that they needed to do something bigger to advance their cause before they were all captured and as a result they were responsible for ABO day. My father never forgave himself for his part in it so I decided a long time ago to try and fix it for him. The Consortium is the best way for me to do it."

"It's really not," Jack replied. "The Consortium have caused too much destruction already, Beverly. Don't help them do more of it."

Beverly didn't comment on that, instead she gave him a sad smile and carefully slid the needle into his arm without touching him. "I'll get a message to Nathan to let him know where you are. Just go to sleep, Jack; you'll feel much better when you wake."

He was so exhausted that the sedative got to work almost immediately. He woke to the feel of hands on his face and he instinctively tried to pull away.

"Hey, it's okay. You're safe now." At the sound of Nathan's voice, Jack blinked his eyes open and saw worried green eyes staring back at him.

His arms were free of the binds and, before he even thought about what he was doing, Jack reached up one shaking hand to pull Nathan down into a chaste kiss before Nathan rested their foreheads together.

"Don't ever do that to me again, Jack." Nathan's voice was full of emotion. "I thought I'd lost you just when I found you. I didn't even realise what was happening between us until I discovered you were missing and then..."

"It's okay. I'm okay," Jack assured him, registering that the pain from before was almost completely gone now that his alpha was there. "I'm not going anywhere; it looks like you're pretty much stuck with me now."

"Mine," Nathan agreed in a low growl and Jack shivered.

"Sorry to interrupt, boss, but the medics are waiting to take you and Dr Blake back to GD," a voice broke in.

Nathan pulled away from Jack with a groan but took hold of his hand as if unwilling to not be touching Jack for any length of time.

Jack squeezed his hand reassuringly before turning towards the voice and blinking in surprise. "Andy?" he asked as he took in the familiar grin on an unfamiliar face.

"Yep, it's me, boss." Andy turned on the spot. "Do you like the new skin? I think it makes me look rakish."

Jack chuckled tiredly. "Yeah, you're looking good, Andy."

He glanced around the warehouse. Isaac was holding Allison close and whispering into her hair as she clung to him and Jack was glad that he'd finally got over his issues with their bond, even if it had taken such an extreme wake up call. Olsen, Franks and the betas were all handcuffed and being roughly shoved out of the door by the GD security team. Unsurprisingly, there was no sign of Beverly.

"Where's Fargo?" Jack asked, not spotting him either.

"He's already gone back to GD," Nathan told him. "We're going to have to isolate him until he comes out of his feral state. That is possibly the weirdest thing, I've ever said."

"And you didn't get to see him go full alpha. It was terrifying and yet kind of adorable." Jack laughed and then watched Andy wander over to help the security team. "So I guess Jo isn't my deputy anymore. I still would've expected her to be here though, complete with some badass weapon."

"Yeah..." Nathan started. "She sort of got sidetracked."

Isaac obviously heard that and snorted. He looked at them over Allison's head. "She was working with Zane to try and track the video transmission as we received it. She had a similar reaction when she saw what they did to you as Fargo did."

"She's an alpha?" Jack grinned smugly. "Allison, you owe me a hundred bucks."

Allison lifted her head to glare at him but it was only half-hearted, she was obviously too happy to be reunited with Isaac to put any heat into it.

"Wait, so she went feral too?" Jack asked as he played back what Isaac had said.

"Yes but in a different way," Nathan smiled wryly. "She basically grabbed her omega and threw him bodily onto a desk. The room barely had time to clear before she ripped all of Donovan's clothes off."

"Not that he was complaining," Isaac added. "Although Parrish is almost apoplectic at having to be locked out of the lab while they complete their bonding."

"And Zane's her omega!" Jack crowed. "Another hundred!"

Nathan smiled then leaned in to speak directly in Jack's ear. "Not to begrudge you fleecing Allison but are you done? I think it's about time we did some bonding of our own, don't you?"

Jack swallowed hard. "I thought I had to get checked out at GD."

"Oh, you do," Nathan confirmed. "But the quicker that gets done, the quicker I get to fuck you through the mattress."

Jack shuddered and he blinked at Nathan in a daze. "Okay, yeah, let's do that. That sounds...yeah. Good."

Nathan smirked and pulled Jack to his feet, slinging an arm around his waist when Jack's legs threatened to give out. He kept hold of Jack the entire journey back to GD and throughout the exam, glaring at anyone who suggested that he let go of Jack's hand so that they could move around him more easily.

Jack was very amused by the whole thing until the doctors insisted that he have a scan to make sure that Olsen's actions hadn't caused any lasting damage. Of course, Nathan wasn't allowed in the room for that and, as soon as he let go of Jack's hand, Jack's heat came back full force. Apparently the touch of his alpha was the only reason that he'd been suddenly able to think with a clear head and as soon as that touch was gone, the fog of need and arousal descended again.

Jack clenched his teeth and stared through the window at Nathan who was looking as tense as Jack had ever seen him; obviously as affected by the brief separation as Jack was. The instant the machine beeped to indicate it was done, Nathan burst into the room and pulled Jack into his arms, rubbing soothing circles onto Jack's back as he tried to get himself back under control.

"Are we all done here?" Nathan asked the doctor, his voice strained.

"Actually, I'd like to monitor Sheriff Carter a little longer to ensure..." the doctor started but Nathan talked over him.

"Let me rephrase that, Dr Harper; we're all done here. I'm taking my omega home."

Unsurprisingly, the doctor didn't argue once Nathan pinned him with the full force of his glare, instead he meekly offered to call a car for them and it was less than fifteen minutes later when they pulled up outside Nathan's house.

They were barely inside the door before Nathan pushed Jack against the wall and kissed him forcefully. Jack moaned and threaded his hands through Nathan's hair to hold him in place as they each poured everything they were feeling into that kiss. When the need to breathe forced them apart Nathan cupped Jack's face, staring at him with an intensity which made Jack's heart beat even faster.

"My omega," Nathan whispered, full of awe, and Jack covered Nathan's hand with his own.

"I told you that you gave up too soon."

Nathan's eyes crinkled with amusement. "Yes, you did and you were right."

Jack widened his eyes in mock surprise. "I'm sorry, could you say that again? I didn't quite hear you."

"You had to be a smartass," Nathan groaned. "Why couldn't I get one of those omegas who are all submissive and quiet?"

"Where would be the fun in that?" Jack asked, echoing Nathan's words from that night in his office.

Nathan laughed and then pulled Jack into another kiss, slowly walking them backwards. Jack wasn't quite sure how they made it up the stairs without more than a couple of stumbles but they managed it and suddenly they were in a bedroom with the biggest and most luxurious bed Jack had ever seen.

"Good god, I may never leave," he said as he stared at the bed in wonder.

"That's the plan," Nathan murmured into his ear before nipping playfully at the lobe. His hands began pulling at the sweatshirt Jack had been given at the infirmary and when Jack tried to help, he shook his head. "Let me do this, Jack. I need to see for myself that you're unharmed."

Jack nodded and stood still as Nathan peeled each layer of clothing of him, stopping after each item to run his hands over the new skin which had been revealed. Jack should have felt embarrassed at being so exposed but the look of reverence in Nathan's eyes and the gentle sweeping touches just made him feel...loved.

When Jack was completely naked, Nathan pushed him onto the bed before quickly and efficiently removing his own clothing. Jack felt the heat start to rise again but this time he didn't try to fight it, this time he watched as his alpha proudly bared himself to Jack's eyes and knew that need in him was about to be satisfied. As soon as Nathan moved within arms' reach, Jack grabbed hold and dragged Nathan down on top of him. Both men groaned at finally being able to feel each other with no barriers between them and whatever Jack had dreamed during his time at that warehouse, it had nothing on the real thing.

Whereas everything up until that point had been full of affection and playfulness, the atmosphere suddenly changed. Instead of the reassuring touches which had kept the heat at bay, Nathan's touch turned possessive and assertive; it made Jack's blood roar as the heat overtook him. All he could see, hear and smell was Nathan; it surrounded him and he arched up against the other man, blindly searching for more.

Nathan took Jack's mouth in another soul searing kiss before he slowly began to make his way down Jack's body, tasting and marking Jack as his own. Jack let out a groan of frustration as Nathan bypassed his straining cock, instead he moved further back to where Jack was already slick and waiting. The groan quickly turned into a yell of surprise and intense pleasure as Jack felt Nathan's tongue stroke over him.

"Nathan...what...?" Jack managed to get out.

Nathan gave a pleased hum against him, the vibration causing Jack's hips to buck. "You taste so good, Jack. I could do this all day."

"But you're not...going to, right?" Jack panted because as good as it felt, and it felt oh so good, he needed something else right now.

"Not this time," Nathan agreed but he didn't seem inclined to move away just yet. He continued to lap at Jack, setting a rhythm that quickly had Jack writhing against the sheets.

Soon, or maybe ages, later Nathan's tongue was replaced by his fingers; slowly moving in Jack, twisting and stretching him. Nathan sat back on his knees and watched with hooded eyes as Jack rocked into the movements, moaning Nathan's name as he stared back.

"Christ, look at you, Jack," Nathan said, his voice rough. "You're perfect...so perfect for me. Such a good omega."

Jack felt a jolt of fire shoot through him at Nathan's words; a primal reaction to the approval of his alpha. He reached up and grabbed Nathan around the back of the neck so that he could pull him down into a messy kiss which ignited the fire further.

"Now, Nathan...I'm ready," Jack begged. "Please, I need you..."

Nathan's eyes darkened at that and he nodded before pulling his fingers free and lining himself up. As Nathan slowly pushed into him, Jack keened and threw his head back against the pillows, his legs automatically coming up and wrapping around Nathan's waist to pull him closer. By the time Nathan was fully seated, Jack was moaning continuously from the feeling of fullness, the feeling of utter rightness rushing through him.

"Jack..." Nathan groaned as his head fell forward onto Jack's shoulder.

Jack tightened his legs around him. "Move...fuck, Nathan...please."

As if that was all he'd been waiting for, Nathan quickly pulled out and slammed back in, causing Jack to cry out as the fire burned white hot within him. Gripping Jack by the hips so tightly that Jack knew it would bruise, Nathan set a punishing pace and Jack pushed back to meet him every time. He relished the feeling of strength in the body above him, loved the way that Nathan could let go, knowing that Jack was just as strong.

Each stroke Nathan made into him drove Jack higher, the pleasure coiling tighter and tighter. As if sensing just how close Jack was, Nathan leaned down to kiss him again, his own movements slowing and the thrusts getting shallower as he started to swell within Jack. His knot, Jack realised with a moan. Something which had repulsed him just a week ago now had the complete opposite reaction, especially when the knot began to press constantly on that place which made stars burst behind Jack's eyes.

Nathan fell forward over Jack, his face buried in the crook of his neck and just when his movements stopped completely, when the knot had fully locked him inside Jack, he bit down hard on the juncture between Jack's neck and shoulder. It was as if a missing piece of Jack had just slotted into place, the bond blooming bright and real between them, and Jack threw his head back with a howl as he fell over the edge.

He wasn't sure how long it took him to come back to himself but Nathan had rolled them so that Jack was sprawled bonelessly on top of him. Jack shifted automatically to move off Nathan and both men gasped as it pulled at the knot still inside Jack.

"Unless you're ready for round two already, I'd stop doing that," Nathan warned him as he ran his fingers through Jack's damp hair.

"Yeah, I got that," Jack chuckled sleepily. "I just didn't want to crush you."

"It's fine," Nathan assured him. "More than, actually. I love that I get to have you this close."

Jack was enjoying it himself so he smiled into Nathan's chest and relaxed again. "So that was pretty amazing, right?"

"Pretty amazing?" Nathan asked. "That's the best you can come up with?"

Jack poked him. "Hey, cut me some slack. I've just had the best sex of my life, you can't expect me to be firing on all cylinders yet. What would you call it, smarty pants?"

"Transcendent," Nathan replied after a moment's thought and Jack grinned.

"Good word." He sleepily snuggled further into Nathan who raised his free arm to wrap around him. "How long are we going to be stuck together like this?"

"Long enough for you to take a nap," Nathan told him, amusement clear in his voice. "Then we can start all over again."

By the time they made it out of the bedroom, mainly due to Jack complaining that he was hungry, it was well into the next day. They were both still damp from the shower, which had taken far longer than it should have due to Nathan's 'helpful' suggestion that they shower together and that, of course, had led to more fooling around.

"There is nothing in these cupboards, Dr Hubbard," Jack yelled over his shoulder as he searched the kitchen, moving slower than normal due to the aches all over his body. "Aren't you alphas supposed to provide for us weak and defenceless omegas? Go hunt and gather us some fried chicken."

"Weak and defenceless, says the ex US Marshall," Nathan muttered walking into the room carrying a large box. "I think you just single handedly put omega rights back a couple of decades."

Jack ignored that comment and pointed at the box instead. "What's that?"

Nathan smirked and handed Jack an envelope addressed to them both. Jack frowned in confusion then laughed out loud when he read the card inside:

Congratulations, Dr Stark and Sheriff Carter.
We were both overjoyed to hear about your new bond and have left you a present on the porch to help you keep your strength up until you are ready to leave the house.
Paul and Vincent.
ps. Sheriff, you are cordially invited to the monthly omega night. Zane can fill you in on all the details as soon as Jo unties him from his bed. V.

"Oh, god bless those men," Jack said reverently as he eagerly began pulling small containers of food out of the box. "I thought they were both betas though; why's Vincent inviting me to omega night?"

He tried to remember if he'd read Paul Suenos' file or just assumed he was a beta because he knew Vincent was.

"Do you honestly believe that anyone could hold something like that without Vincent getting involved?" Nathan looked over once he'd turned on the oven to reheat some of the food. "Besides, I always got the impression that he was disappointed that he wasn't an omega. He thinks the whole bonding experience is very romantic."

"If only he knew the truth," Jack quipped then laughed when Nathan caught him around the waist and dragged him closer.

"Are you saying I'm not romantic enough for you, Jack?" Nathan growled playfully, mouthing at the bonding mark on Jack's neck.

Jack shuddered at the feeling that shot through him but still retorted, "I'm just saying that some candles and flowers wouldn't go amiss."

"Hmm..." Nathan tilted his head as he pretended to think about that. "How about baseball and beer before I take you back to bed?"

Jack pulled him into a sloppy kiss. "I take it all back, you romantic son of a bitch."

* * * * * * * *

They managed to stay in their self imposed exile until the following morning before some emergency called Nathan back to GD. Jack was surprised that they managed to last for as long as they had considering that this was Eureka and both GD directors, the head of medicine and the sheriff were all out of action.

Jack was officially still on leave for one more day so he went back to the bunker to change into some of his own clothes and dodged SARAH's questions about when Nathan was going to move in because they hadn't had the 'where are we going to live' conversation yet. He did call Zoe while he was home and had to put up with her ranting about the fact that no one had told her Jack was missing, then shock over his change of dynamic and finally squealing about his new bond. She promised that she would be home the following weekend to celebrate and to give Nathan 'the talk' which Jack was going to make popcorn for because that was going to be great entertainment.

He was just about to leave and go visit Henry when the doorbell rang and SARAH announced that Jo was at the door. He grinned at her as the door opened which turned into a wince when she immediately punched him in the shoulder as hard as she could.

"Hey...oww...what the hell was that for?" he protested.

"That was for getting yourself kidnapped by psychos on my watch," she told him with a glare.

"Oh, you're just mad because you got so worried about me that you went feral," Jack said. "Admit it, Josephina; you love me really."

"You're a moron," Jo snapped and stomped across the room to help herself to a bottle of water.

"So...how's Zane?" Jack waggled his eyebrows at her. "I heard that Parrish insisted that every surface of the lab be sanitised, twice, before he set foot back in it."

Jo huffed. "I don't know why I was so worried about you. My life would be far less annoying without you in it."

Jack leaned against the counter next to her. "Seriously, Jo. You and Zane; are you okay with it?"

"I'd rather that I didn't go all cavewoman on him in front of half of GD's security team but, yeah, it's really good." She looked at him and gave a smile. "You and Stark? I mean, I have to say I didn't see that one coming."

"Me either." Jack chuckled. "But I'm happier than I've been in a long time."

"Good," Jo said. "And speaking of your better half, he and Graham want to talk to us at some point today. Also, they're letting Fargo out of confinement so we can pick him up while we're there."

"They're releasing Fargo? We have to call into town first, I want to pick something up for him to say thank you and I need your help choosing." Jack was already headed for the door and then suddenly stopped. "What do you mean, better half?"

Jo just laughed as she waltzed past him and out of the door.

It turned out that Nathan and Isaac wanted to inform them both that Jo was being officially made Jack's deputy and that Andy was being transferred to the GD security team. Nathan had his cool and controlled face back on because he and Jack had already agreed that they needed to remain professional while at work. However, Jack didn't miss the amount of times that Nathan's eyes strayed to the mark on Jack's neck and because Jack wasn't actually back on the clock yet, he took great pleasure in raking his eyes over his alpha whenever everyone else's attention was elsewhere, just to make him squirm.

"You're going to pay for that later," Nathan promised as Jack was leaving the office.

Jack smirked. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

Jo couldn't keep the smile off her face as they went to spring Fargo; not only was she bonded to the man she loved but she had her job back. Jack was really happy for her; of all them she'd had to put up with the most crap since they'd got there.

"Hey, hero," Jack said as the doctor let them into Fargo's room.

Fargo grinned at the nickname. "I was, wasn't I? Douglas Fargo saves the day."

"You really did," Jack agreed. "I mean it, Fargo. Even before you went all alpha, you helped me a lot. Thank you."

Fargo looked surprised for a moment before giving Jack a pleased smile.

"And to mark your vey heroic moment," Jo took over, "Carter got you a gift."

Jack tossed a small package to Fargo, and chuckled when the man immediately dropped it; at least he hadn't changed that much.

"Oh! Awesome!" Fargo cried when he opened the present.

He immediately pulled the t-shirt on over his own top and stood proudly in the green shirt which proclaimed: 'Fargo angry! Fargo smash!'

They ran into Allison as they were leaving the infirmary, because she was just as bad as the rest of them about having a day off, and the four of them spent the rest of the day at Henry's where Grace insisted on mothering Jack, Allison and Fargo after their ordeal. They discovered that Henry's dynamic had also settled while the rest of them had been indisposed and it turned out that he was now a beta.

"Basically, you, Fargo and I all switched dynamics," he told Jack when the two of them wandered outside to talk alone. "When you take Jo's dynamic into account as well, it's almost like it happened on purpose. We each changed to fill a void which had previously been present. Nathan needed an omega who could challenge him, Zane needed an alpha who wouldn't see him as weak and Grace needed a beta who wouldn't constantly compare her to the omega he lost."

"Is that even possible?" Jack asked.

"Honestly? I don't know," Henry replied. "I'd say that it was worth looking into but I think, for once, I'm happy to just let it be. It seems as though we got away with our little time travel adventure, I don't want to risk bringing attention on us by exploring that avenue of thought."

Jack nodded in agreement. "So, does that mean you and Grace...?"

"She's an extraordinary woman, Jack. I can see why my counterpart fell for her." Henry sighed. "It's a lot for her to deal with though. It'll take her some time to get over him but maybe...we'll see what happens."

There was the sound of a car pulling up outside the house and Jack smiled when he could feel his alpha's presence without even having to turn around.

"Henry," Nathan said as he wrapped an arm around Jack's waist from behind.

"Nathan." Henry smiled as he looked at the two of them. "Congratulations on the bond. Although you are aware that he can be a bit of a handful, right?"

"Hey, I'm standing right here," Jack protested and Henry started laughing.

"Sheriff!" Jack looked up as Fargo excitedly ran out of the house followed by Grace, Allison and Jo. "I had an idea. Jo's moving in with Zane and you and Dr...Dr Stark!" he squeaked as he not only spotted Nathan but also the fact that Nathan was firmly wrapped around Jack.

Isaac had arrived with Nathan and he chuckled as he walked over to take hold of his own omega. "You'll have to get used to it if you're living in Nathan's house, Fargo."

"That's just it," Fargo said once he shook off his shock at the sight in front of him. "I don't need to be under Dr Stark's protection anymore. I'm an alpha and not even my dad can argue that I'll need my own place now. Sheriff, you and Dr Stark are together so if you move in with him then I can move into the bunker."

"That's not a bad idea," Nathan said. "I have no desire to live in a house covered in cameras and if we leave SARAH empty..."

"She'll go all BRAD again," Jack finished.

"Okay, we'll talk about it tomorrow but for now I have to take my omega home and dish out some punishment for his bad behaviour earlier today," Nathan said, causing Fargo to squeak again and the rest of them to snicker at the blush that quickly rose on Jack's face. "By the way, Fargo; I need you back at work tomorrow. There's a new scientist starting and I want you to show her around. A Dr Holly Marten; she's arriving at nine."

"Dr Marten, I've heard of her," Grace said, nodding. Then she got a sly look on her face. "She's brilliant and an unbonded omega so you might just get lucky, Fargo."

While the others began to tease Fargo, Nathan pulled Jack even closer. "Let's go home."

Jack smiled; he was in the arms of his alpha and surrounded by good friends. "I already am."

Fin.