It has been a few days since the newest addition to the crew joined. And, unfortunately, nothing has gotten easier. It became clear early on that mars was not the most thrilled with the new family member. And Centurion kept bumping into things with their clumsy wobbly gait. This caused more fruitions among the crew. And if that wasn't enough, the realization os just how demanding having another mouth to feed is constantly present. 

Meg had realized this problem and the most obvious solution rather quickly. She gathered her tools and marched to the kitchen. 

Artemis watches her friend work in the kitchen for several minutes. She can't quite figure out why the kitchen is suddenly such a priority for the mechanic. After watching silently for nearly twenty minutes, she decides to get answers. "What're you working on?" 

Meg jumps, startled by the sudden voice. She wipes her brow and turns to see her friend watching her with obvious confusion. "Oh. I'm working on the food materializer. If I can get it working even a little then we don't have to be so worried about food." 

Artemis widens her eyes in surprise. Why hadn't they thought of that? It was so obvious. This seems to be happening to them more and more. At least one of them is always able to find the obvious solution. "That's actually brilliant." 

Meg looks a little affronted. "Of course. Did you think I would come up with a dumb idea?" 

"That's not what I meant." Artemis rushes to try to correct her fumble. 

Meg laughs. "I know. I was just messing with you. Want to give me a hand?" 

Artemis smiles. "Of course!" She goes to join Meg and together they work on fixing the device. 

Apollo recruited Alex's help in trying to get the two  animal crew members to get along. Apollo does everything he can to keep the protoceratops calm. Alex keeps a steady hand on Mars. They try again and again to introduce the two for legged crew members in a calm and nonthreatening way. Mars however has other plans. Every time they try to encourage Centurion to let Mars sniff him, Mars growls at their approach. This of course spooks the prey creature and he hobbles around to try to put distance between them and the predator. 

Alex sighs. "I say we take a break. We can't force this." 

Apollo sighs. He knows his brother-in-law is right. "I know. Okay, let's take a break." 

Alex nods in approval and leads Mars from the room. He takes the red cattle dog to his daughter who immediately starts petting the animal absentmindedly. He knows better than to try to get her attention when she's like this, so he just leaves the room quietly. He makes his way back to the infirmary where he left Apollo and Centurion. 

"So, do you have a plan with them or are they just going to eat all our food, take up space in the infirmary, and cause trouble with Mars?' 

Apollo looks up at his friend's teasing and challenging tone. "Yes, I have a plan. There's a storage room that's mostly empty. I was going to set up a nest for him in there. And I thought that maybe we could try to train them to alert us of danger." 

Alex raises an eyebrow at this suggestion. "Train them? They're a dinosaur, not a dog." 

"I know. But, people have trained everything from birds to wolves in the past. Even herd animals like elephants are trained in zoos to do some basic things. Besides, this shouldn't be that hard for them. They are already familiar with the dangers of this time and place. We should just have to train him to alert us somehow." 

Alex's expression grows more skeptical the more Apollo talks to try to justify his reasoning. The medic seems confident in his thinking. But theories and facts are two different things. If he can somehow manage to pull this off it would be an amazing accomplishment that could also save their lives. But if he doesn't. That could spell disaster for them. 

"You know that trust is essential to train any animal," Alex points out. "And it takes a lot of time and patience. Are you really sure you can devote this much time to it?" 

Apollo doesn't answer right away. he seems to be thinking on the other man's words. But he eventually comes up with a reply. The medic smirks and shrugs playfully. "What else am I going to do? We clearly have nothing but time on our hands." 

Alex sighs. If he's really sure he wants to do this, he isn't going to argue with him. he probably wouldn't be able to change his friend's mind anyway. "If you're sure." 

Apollo nods, perhaps a little too eagerly to be casual. Alex can practically see the gears turning in his friend's head. he's probably thrilled to have the chance to try to train a dinosaur. Something no one has ever done before. Apollo always was a nerd. Eager to study and prove himself. Alex takes a moment to ponder on how long it will take his friend to want to do a deep dive into the animal's biology. After all, if something happens to the animal the medic would be the one responsible for treating them. 

Realizing his friend is lost in this own head, Alex decides to leave. Apollo doesn't even notice when his friend leaves. He is too busy trying to come up with a training program for Centurion. 

Val is busy in her usual workspace. Mars has gotten comfortable curled up around her legs. Every time she gets frustrated and feels like throwing her tablet across the room Mars senses it. He'll lift his head and nudge her leg, prompting her to take a break from her work and pet him. She's feeling better, more relaxed while she tries to work. Alex passes by the room and stops to take in the sight. He doesn't see her so relaxed very often. Especially recently, she's been so focused on doing her part since they first arrived in this time. 

"How're you doing?" He breaks the silence. 

Val looks up at her father. He notices immediately the lack of an irritated expression. "I'm good. It's slow going." 

Alex nods. "That's good. Slow progress is still progress." Val nods absentmindedly in response. "Why don't you take a break. I think both of you could use it." 

Val looks confused for a moment. "I have to work on this." 

Alex smiles fondly at his daughter. "It's not going anywhere. You can take a break." 

Val contemplates his words for a moment before nodding. "Alright. C'mon Mars, let's go take a break." Mars gets up and stretches then dutifully follows her from the room. She leads him to her room. Val dramatically collapses on her bed. Letting out a long relaxing sigh she rolls onto her back and pulls herself into a sitting position. She looks down at Mars with a soft smile. "What should we do, Buddy?" mars just looks at her with his warm brown eyes. Val smiles. "You're right," She picks up the book resting on her nightstand, "let's see what happens next." She settles in and continues to read her book. 

Will pokes his head out of his room. He has spent the last few days avoiding the others. He doesn't want to get dragged into doing work that is either way over his head or beneath him. So far his strategy has been working. He's been comfortably hiding away in his room. And other than the suffocating boredom it has been a great time. 

After seeing that the coast is clear, Will exits his room. He is on a mission to find something to help with his boredom. He thinks there's a deck of cards in the living room. he just has to sneak down the hall as quietly as possible. Go downstairs, and silently make his way to the living room, collect the cards and get back to his room. All without being seen. That's not so hard, right? Piece of cake. 

But, of course, things couldn't be that easy. Will only gets halfway down the hall when someone calling his name breaks through his happy isolation. He stops suddenly and turns towards the source of the voice. His uncle is standing in the the doorway to the meeting room that has become his cousin's workroom. 

"Do you got a minute?" Alex asks his nephew, knowing the answer already. Will tried to fumble out a response. But it's obvious he's just looking for an excuse. "Great!" Alex chirps. "Think you can help me and Apollo with something?" 

Realizing he has no way out, Will gives in. "I guess." 

Alex nods in approval. "Good. Come with me." He leads his nephew down the hall to a nearly empty storage room. "Apollo wants to turn this into a room for Centurion. But first we have to clear this out." Alex steps into the room and picks up the nearest crate. Will sighs and follows his uncle into the room. There is no getting out of it now. The teen picks up a crate and follows his uncle out of the room and down the hall. He's lead to another storage room that is mostly full. They drop off the crates and go back to collect more. They continue the process until they've moved everything over. 

"Thanks for helping with that. Now let's go talk to Apollo about what he wants done." 

Will slouches a little. Of course. Why did he think he would be done after moving a few crates? At least Apollo usually gives him jobs to do that are somewhat fun and generally easy. So this shouldn't be too hard. Right? 

They make their way to the infirmary where Apollo is still seated at his desk. The medic looks up when they arrive. "We cleared out that storage room. How are we setting it up?" 

Apollo is shocked from his previous train os thought at this news. He didn't think they would get right to it. He hasn't gotten through all his research yet. "Uh, I'm not completely sure. I guess we just try to make it like their native environment and maybe he'll to the rest." 

Alex raises a brow at his friend. "That's is? Your whole plan is to make it look like home and hope he doesn't the rest?" Apollo doesn't know how to respond, so he settles on just shrugging his shoulders. Alex sighs. "Alright. I guess we're shoveling sand into the storage room. Meg and Val are going to hate this." 

"What is we didn't use sand?" Will mutters, mostly to himself. Just thinking out loud. 

Both adults look at him. "What do you mean? What else would we use?" Alex questions the teen. 

Will looks up, startled. He hadn't realized they heard him. he brushes off the shock quickly and answers the question. "Well we have those blankets, right? The ones that can mimic an environment. We can program some of them to mimic the sand outside and even adjust their temperature. They could easily make a nest out of them. I know it's not a perfect solution. But at least it's something." 

The two adults looks at each other. "Why didn't we think of that?" Alex questions his friend. 

Apollo shrugs. "I know why I didn't. I don't know why you didn't though." 

Alex rolls his eyes and turns back to the teen. "You know where they are?" Will nods. "Okay. We'll do that then. Definitely safer than making Meg and Val mad by bringing a bunch of sand onboard."