Randal O'Lane walked a brisk pace--just a skip away from a run--down the interior hallway of the agency's Nebraska headquarters. He tapped the small communicator in his ear, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"Are you serious? You just let them in?" he snapped into the small microphone as he turned a corner and caught sight of his quarry--all four of them.

"Have you talked to this woman? Good god, it was like listening to my mother, the police, and that Sunday school nun with the ruler all at once!" the voice crackled over the static directly into Randal's ear.

"You. ARE. The police," O'Lane growled. He felt a vein bulging in his temple.

"True. But I am not my mother. Unless you ask my partner haha!"

Randal barked an order--no one in or out--before cutting off contact with the security team posted at the entrance to the building. This is what he got for relying on local forces, he thought with no small bias. He briefly remembered the officer named Takeda back in Brighton and almost revised his position.

Almost.

The group under pursuit had stopped halfway down the hallway to look around for directions.

"Mrs. and Mr. Thompson, hello," he said, pulling up beside them and resisting the urge to grab and shake the parents. He nodded quickly to the two children, a grimace forming as he registered the presence of the young girl. They looked back at him with only mild interest.

"Ah, Agent O'Lane. Would you mind directing us to Emma's room? The security guard downstairs gave us somewhat vague instructions," Mrs. Thompson said by way of greeting. She was standing with one arm loosely slung over her husband's shoulders, the other wrapped protectively around her midsection.

"I thought we agreed that you wouldn't try to meet with your daughter until my psych team and verified whether or not sudden exposure to her family might damage her further. I can't imagine you want to-"

"With all due respect," Mrs. Thompson interrupted, her face askew with blatant distaste, "I've had just about enough of 'your team' deciding what's right for me and my family. She needs us. This is my daughter. I am going to see her," she said with no room for argument. 

"I'm pretty sure the guy downstairs said it was to the left up here," Trent volunteered around O'Lane's partial attempt to respond, and Mrs. Thompson shot her son a grateful, fond smile. The family moved forward, leaving O'Lane to stand alone behind them in the narrow hallway.

He pressed his palms to his eyes, tipping his head back in frustration. A reunion right now was the last thing anyone needed, especially one that involved the kid. Not only was Lyly still completely unpredictable, but O'Lane couldn't even imagine what would it do to a preteen to suddenly be reunited with a missing sister, only to have that sister not remember her.

After a deep, rumbling breath, he turned to follow.

The family had made it to the door, the correct door, by some incredible chance.

He joined them just outside the closed door of the young woman's room, his face a tight frown. He watched as the family took a collective breath at the doorway, saw the deep fear buried in Mrs. Thompson's eyes as she reach forward to turn the knob. 

The door swung open easily. 

They all paused at the entryway, their apparent momentum diffused by what they saw.

Inside the room was a well-dressed older gentleman and a young woman with hair down to her chin. It was brown from crown to the tips of her ears, and bubblegum pink the rest of the way down. The gentleman leaned close to the young woman's head to observe the lock of hair that he held in his open palm with intense interest. 

The young woman turned to the group standing in her open doorway, starting slightly to see an in-the-flesh recreation of the faces that had looked up at her from the picture she'd been given just a few days ago. A heavy silence coated the room as the two sides stared. 

"Oh, Emma," Mrs. Thompson whispered, rushing into the room without a care to pull Lyly into a crushing embrace. Three bodies followed closely after, swarming around Lyly with sobs and incoherent exclamations. 

The gentleman was knocked out of the way, finally looking up from his study. He stepped lightly back toward the far wall, folding his hands at the small of his back as he observed this new group with equal interest. 

O'Lane stepped slowly into the room, noting the change in the young woman's hair but keeping his attention firmly on the unexpected figure. His fingers twitched as one hand moved to hover over his weapon. 

"Lyly," he called carefully, pitching his voice over the cacophonous but muted sobs of the Thompsons. "Who is this?"

Lyly stood unnaturally still in the center of the crush of bodies. Her eyes flashed from face to face of those surrounding her, her hair rustling ever so slightly around her head. A pink gleam travelled across her iris, but a gruff harrumph from the gentleman drew her attention. He tilted his head ever so slightly in her direction, and her hair flattened again.

Slowly, one limb at a time, she extracted herself from the suffocating hold of the people clutching at her and took several large steps away. 

"Lyly." O'Lane repeated with more force. The gentleman's face crinkled in an amused smile, but he didn't bother to speak up. 

"Grandfather," Lyly said, turning to O'Lane as if he could rescue her from the tear-drowned shock and hurt projecting out from the broken family huddled in the center of the room.

Her wish was granted as all four members of the Thompson family turned to look.

"That is absolutely not your grandfather," Mr. Thompson said through a tight throat as he looked the other man up and down.

"I did say for lack of a better term," the gentleman said with a light, unaffected shrug.

"Lyly, how did he get in here?" O'Lane asked, his gun out and pointed at the figure. A crackling response in his ear from the security team verified his suspicion, that there was no way this man had gotten in through the ground floor entrance. 

"He was floating," Lyly replied, lifting one hand with finger pointed toward the window. O'Lane flicked a glance to follow where she indicated.

"What?" he scoffed harshly under his breath. His risked a longer look over to Lyly, raised an eyebrow. "Then why did you let him in?"

"Emma, come here," Mrs. Thompson demanded, reaching a hand out as she measured the distance between the intruder and her daughter with her eyes. 

Lyly remained where she was.

"Because he was floating!" she said again with more emphasis. 

"Lyly, that is not a good reason to let someone into your room," O'Lane said, suddenly more tired than he could bear.

The old gentleman chuckled.

"Emma! Answer me, hon. Why won't you come over here? It's safe." Mrs. Thompson's voice was breaking as she spoke, her hand still outstretched imploringly toward Lyly. Lyly looked back and forth between the offered hand and the woman who held it out, then let her eyes wander across the taller faces of the father and son, and finally drift down to the small face of the daughter.

It was an incomplete picture, Lyly thought.

Mrs. Thompson sucked in her lower lip, brows drawing in tightly.

"O'Lane, why won't she answer me?" she said in a low plea.

O'Lane kept his gun level at the intruder, who looked back at him with mocking interest.

"O'Lane!"

Agent O'Lane snapped to the side, "This is why I told you to wait."

"Just who the hell are you, to be here right now?" Trent asked, speaking up for the first time as he stared down the unidentified man through tear-blurred eyes. "You're not our grandfather – why are you bothering Emma?"

"It's Lyly," Lyly said firmly, facing the clustered family and tilting her head to the side.

"...what?" Mrs. Thompson said, voice barely louder than a breath.

"My name is Lyly," she repeated, still watching them. Her hair floated lightly around her face.

Mrs. Thompson's face collapsed, as did her knees, and Mr. Thompson barely caught her in time to protect her stitches. Trent audibly groaned his frustration and grief as he ran a hand down his face, not missing the opportunity to throw another glare at the stranger in the room. 

Only Rebecca continued to look at her sister, her brow pulling together and her lips pressing in a firm downturned bow. She hiccuped a quick sob before running the back of her hand across her eyes.

"...don't you remember?" Rebecca said softly, angling her body so that she was speaking not to her sister, but to her mother.

"Not now, dear," Mr. Thompson said as he and Trent supported Mrs. Thompson over to the bed to sit down, but Rebecca stood firmly planted between her family and her sister.

"No," Rebecca said loudly. "Lyly. The name. Don't you remember?" she asked again, hands limp at her sides, tears falling down her face. Her parents and brother looked at her uncomprehendingly.

Slowly, step by careful step, Rebecca drew closer to Lyly, who watched her every inch of the way. The girl slipped her small hand into the loose fist her sister held at her side. She looked up into the eyes that weren't quite the same as she remembered, took a deep breath, and turned to face the others.

"When Emma used to talk to me, about the future, she would always say that that was the name she would give to her first child. Boy or girl," Rebecca added with a wet, bitter laugh. She wiped her free hand across her dripping nose as she turned to O'Lane. "Didn't...I thought I heard you say she might be someone different now," she said through her tears, "but I think she's still part Emma."

Lyly looked down at the smaller version of her body, felt through the skin-to-skin connection the resonance between them as an eerie silence fell on the other side of the room.

"You feel it, yes?" the gentleman said, a small smile creeping up his lips.

"You stay quiet unless I ask you questions," O'Lane said, tearing his eyes away from the family drama playing out before him to return his full attention to the threat at hand. 

"She's like you," the gentleman continued, taking a step closer to the pair. "She's just like you were before you were changed."

Lyly and Rebecca shared a glance, a glimmer of recognition peeking through Lyly's eyes.

"Sir, I'm going to need you to step back and put your hands up against the wall where I can see them," O'Lane said, advancing with both hands firmly on the gun.

"Agent, put that thing down," a cold, hard voice said with uncompromising authority. O'Lane drew back, gun still held steady but shoulders rising from their hunched and ready position as he turned an incredulous look toward Mrs. Thompson.

She was sitting with a straightened spine on the corner of the bed, her husband tightly gripping one shoulder and her other hand wrapped around her son's. Tears still leaked unremittingly down her face, but her gaze did not waver as she stared down the man who dared wave a gun in the room with her children.

The old gentleman chuckled heartily. 

"That's my Lynne for you," he said with a doting smile. "You may not have inherited my gifts, but you were always a tremendous source of pride."

Mrs. Thompson turned the same unyielding expression toward him. "I have had enough of you, too. Who are you, why do you claim to know my family, and what do you want with Em—" she paused, almost choking on the familiar name, one that she had thought she would never get the chance to say again--and still might not. She cleared her throat. "—my daughter?"

The gentleman turned to O'Lane, pursed his lips in thought, and with a flick of his hand wrenched the gun from the agent's grip from afar, some invisible force yanking it forward and sending it flying toward the window, which opened itself just enough to allow the weapon to sail past before settling gently back into its frame.

"Nasty things," he said, patting his hands together as if he had personally touched it. "Never liked them."

Everyone stood perfectly still and stared, expect for Lyly, who extracted her hand from the girl's and clapped lightly. The gentleman dipped his head in acknowledgement of her praise, amusement softening his face into wavy wrinkles.

"Now we can talk on more cordial terms, yes? Please, do have a seat."

Lyly immediately folded her legs underneath her, falling to the ground where she stood and staring with rapt attention at the man. Rebecca glanced between Lyly and the rest of her family on the bed before slowly joining her sister on the floor, tentatively leaning against her warm side. At the gentleman's waved insistence, Randal sank onto the swiveled desk chair.

"Now, where to begin?" The man said with a broad smile.

~~

Outside the window of that same room, a shadowy silhouette crouched just below the frame.