Ten minutes. We agreed he’d only stay in the star gate for ten minutes. Just long enough for him to get a quick look around to try and establish the time and place the stargate lead to and then straight back.

Do not be seen, do not be heard. Get in, get out. Those were the rules.

I was tasked with waiting here, with the horses. We agreed Cal would be back in ten minutes. If he’s not, I wait no longer than one additional hour before alerting Professor Gamby to our shenanigans and begin the task of figuring out how to rescue Cal.

I watched the symbols of the stargate etched into the red bedrock begin to fade, when the swirling electrical sound of the stargate opening started back up. It had only been about two minutes, I figured Cal had ran into trouble early and had to jump back through already.

At least I hoped it would be Cal.

As he stepped back through, I was relieved to recognize the black snake tattoo wrapping around his forearm immediately but as my eyes made their way up to his face, my brain had a hard time reconciling the image in front of me because this man looked like he could be Cal’s dad, definitely closer to 50 and not the 28 year old man that just walked through that Stargate a minute earlier.

‘Ellis?’ he asked, his voice definitely that same, gentle tenor I’m familiar with. I’d know that voice anywhere.

I nodded slowly, unable to take my unblinking gaze from his face, which was sporting a whole new set of soft wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that were not there just moments ago.

Rushing toward me, he caught me in an embrace, wrapping his arms around my stiff, still uncertain body. ‘Oh my god, Ellis, I can’t believe you’re actually here. How did you know I was coming back? How long have you been here?’

Confused by his question, I shook my head pulled his arms from around me and held his hands between us, ‘What do you mean, Cal? You just went through like,’ I looked at my watch to read the seconds as the timer countinued counting, ‘2 minutes and 12 seconds ago.’

The color drained from Cal’s now-mature face.

‘Impossible.’ Now it was Cal’s turn to stare blankly at me.

‘Look,’ I say, as I turn my wrist for him to see the timer, still clicking.

He grabbed my wrist and held it in one hand then slowly dropped it and turned his eyes back to mine, a despair there I had never seen before. ‘Ellis,’ he gulped. ‘I was in there for 22 years.’