Across The Borders Of Time (11/14)
Title: Across The Borders Of Time
Author: not_from_stars
Artist(s): danceswithgary and whuffle
Media Link: DancesWithGary and Whuffle
Word Count: 37,255
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het and Slash
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Hilary Becker, Danny Quinn/Connor Temple
Summary: Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
Author’s Notes: This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the labor part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. danceswithgary made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this stork, I want to make sure she gets herthanks for that. I want to thank whuffle for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank whuffle and morrigans_eve for adding their encouragement to that of enochiansigils so that I could stick to writing this.
Three years of exile and she had stopped talking altogether. It didn’t make sense to keep trying to speak and remember words from home when there was no one to hear or understand her. She had gotten used to the silence from herself and then came to understand each of the sounds that surrounded her.
She still did her best to avoid the Australopiths that she would come across because she wasn’t sure how long their memory was. However, when she did come in contact with any of them, she started to understand enough signs and sounds from them to communicate very carefully. She didn’t want to cause them distress or make them think she was going to attack them in any way.
For the longest time she steered clear of any of them she heard or saw tracks from. She thought that it was for the best, at first. Not only did she that it was a good survival instinct after what Helen had done to one of the family groups, but also she could hear Nick’s voice in her head sometimes. He was always warning her to be careful with contact and to preserve the fossil records so there were no unanswered questions years from now when scientists studied the sites.
Sometimes, though.
Sometimes she wanted to tell the voice in her head to sod off and shove the bloody fossil record. Archaeologists and the fossil record didn’t factor in anomalies and people getting trapped somewhere they didn’t belong because they were trying to save humanity and possibly the planet. The fossil record didn’t take into account someone from modern times having to find ways to survive in the far past until they could get home. The damn fossil record didn’t have any concept of someone losing everything.
Abby’s wandering thoughts caused her to miss a step in the bluff she was trying to climb over and she felt herself falling sideways. She scrambled for purchase, trying to find some kind of crevice to dig her fingers into or the roots of something to stop her descent, but there was nothing of the kind that she could find in the few seconds that it took for her to fall.
She hit the ground hard, causing a sharp wordless cry to come from her lips. She lay there for a few moments, trying to do a quick inventory of her injuries. She didn’t think that anything was broken, well, as far as she could tell from lying prone on the ground. She took a deep breath and tried to sit up, but pain swept through her head and shoulder causing bile to rise in her throat. She swallowed the nausea, trying to see how bad she was hurt.
One thing was for sure, though, she couldn’t just stay down here like this. She would be an easy meal for any carnivorous predator that caught her scent. Injured as she was, she wouldn’t last long in a fight with anything.
She managed to get to her feet, but the world swam around her. She had at least a minor concussion. She raised her hand to touch her head and groaned as pain moved through her shoulder. It made sense, though. She had landed on her shoulder before she hit her head.
At least, that was what she thought had happened. She had been trying to twist so as not to break her neck when she hit the ground. Apparently, it had worked. She could move her shoulder only barely, but at least she could still feel everything in her body - even if a lot of it was due to pain, now.
She’d willingly take the pain over paralyzing herself out here where there was no hospital and no medical care that was for damn sure.
Feeling something on her face, she reached her uninjured hand to her head and her hand came away sticky with blood. Hurt was bad, but bleeding was even worse. She had to find somewhere safe to take shelter so she could stop the bleeding. The blood would attract a predator in no time, so she needed to get to a safe haven.
She needed to find shelter near water because she didn’t know how long she might need to deal with the head injury.
Those were her last thoughts as the world swam out of focus and everything went dark.
When she became aware of her surroundings again, she could swear that she was moving. Everything felt like it was on fire, but there was something holding her arms against her sides. Had she broke her arms when she fell again and she just couldn’t feel them? She swallowed past the pain and opened her eyes, only to blink for a moment.
The eyes that met hers weren’t human - though she knew that one day they would be. She gazed up at a face that she thought she recognized from one of the few Australopiths she had interacted with over the last few months or year. She could hear others of his clan moving around them, and then realized with a start that he was carrying her.
When she tried to turn her head, he made a sound of disapproval. He didn’t sound angry or like he was going to hurt her, but obviously, he didn’t want her to move. She would have been curious about how they had found her and why they were carrying her away, but the pain flared and she blacked out again.
The next time she opened her eyes it was because she felt water on her head and on her face. When she couldn’t see immediately, she made a sound of distress, afraid she had fallen into a river or something while she was unconscious. She struggled, but felt herself being firmly held down. She could hear herself making sounds of fear and worry - even if they were wordless. In response, something was lifted off of her face and she blinked from the sudden glare of sunlight.
Another face was peering down at her and it was a different member of the Austropalith group. This one was female and she was holding a bunch of wet leaves in one of her hands. The female shook the leaves, dunked them in the water and then pressed them to her face again. It took her a few tries, but Abby finally realized that the other female was trying to get her to chew or suck on the leaves.
Water.
They were trying to get her to drink water and the best way they could think of to do it had been to soak leaves from the trees in the nearby river she could now hear clearly and press them against her lips.
They were taking care of her.
For some reason, when they had found her injured, they had brought her to the river and they were taking care of her. She wasn’t sure why they had decided to do this, but she was amazed and touched by their concern for a creature that wasn’t one of them.
As she sucked on the leaves to get the moisture into her body that she needed, she felt fingers moving carefully through her hair. Even though she didn’t understand what they were saying to each other, she could feel their concern for her injuries - as well as their curiosity over the way she looked and how she was different than what they were used to.
Different, but there were obviously things they realized they had in common with her since they were going through such great lengths to help her.
These were the people she had lost everything to protect and as she lost consciousness again, she felt even closer to them than she had before. Before, she was saving them because they were her ancestors. Now, she was glad that she had because they were more than just her ancestors. They were people and they were amazing. They were everything that was right about humanity’s existence.
It took her some days before she was able to move on her own and in that entire time, the family group never left her. She was cared for like she was one of their own. A child in their eyes, for sure, even with how old she was in her world. She was injured and vulnerable and instead of leaving her to be killed and eaten, they had brought her to their territory and were taking care of her.
They brought her berries and plants to eat and she discovered that if it was in small pieces, she could eat the raw meat that they offered her. Her body needed the protein and nutrition that the meat supplied her and she began to get used to eating it raw - though she amused them endlessly when she would clean the meat in the water to get all traces of blood off of it. They weren’t at the stage of evolution where humans discovered fire and cooking yet, and she wasn’t about to change history in such a major way.
She spent a great deal of time watching them and interacting with them as best as she could. She learned a little of the way that they communicated and she was able to duplicate some of the signals and sounds that they used.
The first time they saw her cry, though, she gave them reason for alarm.
She hadn’t been aware of the tears at first. She had gotten lost in her thoughts while working on cleaning some kind of skin with them. (She refused to feel guilty for teaching this group how to use stones as tools for things. They had saved her life and this was the best way she could think of to repay them for that kindness. The bloody fossil record could just sod off where this family group was concerned in her eyes.)
She was scraping at the skin with the edge of a sharp rock when she thought about how much Sarah would have enjoyed being here and getting to know these creatures. Connor would have loved it, too. She didn’t realize she was crying until one of the family with her made high keening noises and started trying to press something against her eyes.
She wasn’t allowed to move from the shelter for the rest of that day and had to lay quietly with leaves covering her eyes. The family - her family - had apparently thought that something was wrong with her eyes and that the tears were another type of blood. Blood they were all too familiar with, tears, not so much. She had no way to get them to understand the difference, so in the end, it was just easier for her to obey their physical and vocal insistence that she lay down and keep the leaves over her eyes until they decided that she was capable of moving around with them again.
Of course, since she didn’t have anything else to do except lie there, it gave her mind plenty of time to think about things she didn’t particularly want to…
…like the feel of Becker holding her close to him when they were together in his bed or hers. Or the way Connor’s face lit up when he discovered some new scientific gadget. The way Danny smelled when he hugged her…
Thoughts, which in turn, made her feel extremely guilty. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her best friends in that way. It was okay to think about Becker like that because until all of this had happened with Helen, he had been hers. He had been hers and she had been his, so thinking about him in a physical way was permissible. Danny and Connor had never had that kind of relationship with her, so she shouldn’t have been thinking of them in such a way. It wasn’t right and it was disloyal to Becker.
There were several things that people probably could call her and had in her past, but one thing she wasn’t was disloyal. Whether you had her heart or her friendship - or both - she had always been incredibly loyal. Some would have said almost blindly so. She had never once - ever - considered cheating on Becker, so why now was she thinking of her other two friends in such a way?
She tried to sit up, but she was pushed gently, but firmly, back down. She knew it was useless to protest when they were in their caregiver mode, so she allowed herself to be pushed back down. Once she did that, something was slipped gently beneath her head and she felt one of them place something against her mouth. She had apparently not eaten enough for their liking today and they worried that her leaking eyes would make her weak. She wasn’t hungry, but dutifully she opened her mouth to eat what they were feeding her. The texture was like a mushroom and since she was used to them here, she chewed it and swallowed. After they fed her a few more of them and gave her water, they left her to rest.
She really couldn't call it a normal kind of resting. She could feel herself coming in and out of sleep and she could hear the movements of the family group around her, but soon she wasn't even aware of them. She felt ill and everything inside her seemed to be trembling. It was when she realized that she couldn't feel her hands or her legs that she just closed her eyes and let herself be carried away.
When her eyes opened again,the scene she found herself in was nothing like she had expected.
"Becker? Danny?" Her voice came out in a low questioning tone, but there were no words. All that escaped was a tone that she couldn't turn into words. The power of speech had deserted her a long time ago.
The two men that were on the bed turned and as one, they reached for her. Her hands had barely touched theirs when she felt another body press against hers from the back. The gentle lips along her neck could only belong to Connor. That was the only one that made sense since Danny and Becker were pulling her towards them and onto the bed.
"Don't be afraid, Abby my girl," Becker murmured, pulling her down between him and Danny. "Everything's all right. You're right where you belong -- with the people that love you."
Abby made a confused noise in her throat, looking around her at the three men that were all looking at her with love shining in their eyes.
"I know, love," Danny said, dipping his head to kiss along the curve of her neck. "You're not sure what's happening or even if any of this is real. But for right now, it's real."
Abby whimpered, her eyes turning to look at Becker in question as she felt a set of fingers that weren't his stroking the inside of her thigh. She shivered at the touch, reaching for Becker, to get him to tell her what was happening.
"Relax, Abs," she heard Connor say before she felt his lips along the lower part of her back. "Don't worry about anything right now and just let us take care of you."
A finger slid inside her and she couldn't help the moan that came from her throat -- even as Becker pulled her face to his and kissed her deeply. It was a hungry kiss and it was a kiss of possession. She pressed her body towards him, one hand running down his chest until she felt his erection in her hand. She squeezed gently, and was rewarded by a groan from her boyfriend.
To her surprise, though, Becker smiled and moved her hand, stroking her arm as he pushed her onto her back. "As much as I love your touch and the way you can get me ready to lose myself with just a stroke of your hand, this isn't about me right now. This is about you."
"And what we're going to do to you," Danny added as he ducked down to take one of her breasts into his mouth. She arched up as his lips tugged at her nipples. He did that for a moment before letting go and looking into her eyes. "We're going to show you everything, love. We're going to do so much to you that you won't know how to react to all of the pleasure that we're giving you."
She felt fingers questing along her ass and she squirmed slightly. Her thoughts were all jumbled and confused. These three men, her boyfriend and her two best friends were telling her that all three of them were going to shag her quite thoroughly. This was nothing that she had ever thought about and she certainly had never expected to be given such attention by three men that were so close to her.
As if he could hear her thoughts -- and long before she had disappeared into the past Becker had usually been able to tell what she was thinking -- Becker leaned down and kissed her again before he moved back. Smiling, he met her eyes as he reached down to curl his own hand around his cock and stroked it lightly. Abby whimpered, watching him. When Becker saw how her eyes were trained on him, he gave her a grin before bending over her and running the tip along her lips. His touch was very light and he didn't allow his cock to rest against her lips. He barely brushed it against her mouth, smiling at the want that was filling her eyes.
"You want this, don't you love? You want me to bury myself deep in your throat and watch you as you work my cock with your mouth." Abby moaned softly and he grinned, brushing against her lips again. He knew what it did to her when he talked like this. He also knew that one of her favorite things to do was to use her mouth on him. "Don't worry, love, you will. I plan to make you work your mouth a great deal tonight. But, Danny and Connor are going to work on you, too." Abby's sudden gasp and shudder made him grin again. "Ah. I see that Connor has started using his fingers on your gorgeous arse." When he watched her eyes widen, he nodded. "Oh yes, love. We have you right where you belong and all three of us are going to show you that you're ours and that we love you no matter what."
While he was talking, Abby felt her legs spread apart and the next thing she knew, Danny had thrust inside her with only a soft warning. She arched up against him, her throat convulsing as she tried to speak. Good. Oh god, Connor and Danny were making her feel so good. She tried to gather her thoughts, but it was hard when she was getting stroked and caressed by Connor's fingers and Danny's cock. Finally she managed to look up at Becker again, a clear want shining in her eyes.
He smiled softly. "I love you, Abby my girl." He leaned closer, brushing her lips with the tip of his erection and Abby opened her mouth, reaching for him...
...only to wake up on the floor of a cave spitting out the wet leaves she had caused herself to choke on when she inhaled deeply.
She curled on her side, misery sweeping through her. It was a dream, nothing more. Or, maybe not quite a dream as she thought about the last thing she had eaten before sleeping. A hallucination, then. A very real hallucination caused by a mix of the mushrooms and berries she had been fed. A hallucination that made her feel even more alone than ever before.
Her choking had alerted her caretakers and they were immediately there, cleaning off her face and smoothing her hair back. She saw concern in their eyes and for a moment, she was very confused. She looked past one of them to see that the shadows cast by the sun had changed position from where they were the last time she had taken note of them. How long had she been like that?
She made a sound that she had learned and pointed at the sky, then pointed at herself, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, some of the group were communicating among themselves and finally one of the females stomped on the ground three times. What she met was clear to Abby. The night had come three times while she slept.
Another of the females brought a handful of wet leaves and placed them against Abby's lips, wanting her to drink. The water helped and Abby realized that she hadn't had enough to drink. From the faces of the family group, she had been ill. That's why they were wetting her face and making sure she sucked on the leaves.
She had been ill. That would explain why her body felt so wrung out and weak. She wasn't sure what had caused her to take ill, but it was clear that her Austropalith family hadn't understood her illness, either.
While the being ill explained away the condition of her body, but it certainly didn't explain the reason she had experienced such a vivid hallucination of Becker, Danny and Connor all making love to her at the same time. It didn't make any sense and she had never dreamt of anything like that before.
So why did the loss of that hallucination feel painful bordering on despair?
...it scares me. I think that I may be seriously losing my mind. Ever since the dream I had when I was so ill, I keep having dreams like that. The dreams are always a lot of the same thing I hallucinated when I was ill. Only, they seem to increase in intensity depending on how I've been feeling that day. Sometimes I'm almost afraid to go to sleep because I can tell that I'll have one of those dreams. It makes me feel guilty that I don't only dream of Becker. Oh, I have plenty of dreams where it's just the two of us -- but I'm also having dreams of the four of us. It doesn't seem right that I should be doing that. I feel like I'm cheating on Becker in my dreams. I know that it's insane. After three years, he has to have moved on and found someone else. After three years, he must have gotten over me. But I can't stop the guilt I feel when I realize that I've had another one of those dreams. He may no longer be mine, but I still consider myself his. He still has my heart and my soul. Granted, I have feelings for Danny and for Connor, too, but I was with Becker and I would never have done anything to hurt him or betray him. I never would have cheated on him or made him doubt how much I love him. I would especially not do anything with his two best mates. What kind of person would that make me if I could do something like that to such a wonderful and loving man like Becker? I would never be unfaithful to him. Never.
Or at least, I would only do it in my mind, apparently. Faithful in body, unfaithful in my mind.
It's almost winter here now, I think. It's gotten colder and the nights are getting longer again. My Austropalith family have moved on to seek someplace to hibernate for the winter, I believe. They were spending a lot of time gathering up food and supplies. I showed them how to carry water it the hollows of some stones and made sure they had the weapons we had made together. Yeah, the weapons are not normal for this time period or even for them at their stage of evolution, but I had to do something to give them a better chance. They took care of me and adopted me into their clan and I want them to have a fighting chance with anything they come across that's bigger than they are. Cutter and Stephen would turn in their graves for me messing up the archaeological records like this, but they're not the one that was hurt and dying and that was taken in and cared for by these creatures. I owed them the best that I could do with what we have hear to help them. They have spears made with sticks and blades made with sharp rocks. While they made their kind of spears, I made mine. I didn't dare give them my blades for weapons as that would be even harder to justify later. But they seemed happy with what I showed them and none of them tried to take my spears from me. The hilts of two of my knives were beyond repair, so I used them as the blades for my new spears. One spear is taller then me and one is a few inches shorter. They wobble when I throw them, but that's to be expected. I've never had to make my own weapons before. The first few times I used them, I had to keep repairing them, but by now I have developed a way to keep the blades on the sticks no matter how hard they hit.
I'm going to be alone again. They left to hibernate and I'm following some of the herds south. Surprisingly enough, the cave I was staying in before I got hurt was undisturbed. Most of my supplies were still there. The only thing that wasn't there that I desperately need is a change of clothes, but it's not like I expected to need a change of clothing when we started all of this three years ago. I can only do so many more repairs on these before I'm wearing little more than shorts and bra. I am not going to start running around the Pleistocene looking like some bad film version of an amazon. I've learned to make tools and other things out here in the last three years. I'm pretty sure that I can figure out how to sew the shreds of blankets together or even a skin or something to make sure that I stay covered up. If I'm going to live out the rest of my life in this damn place and then die here, I am not going to end this existence looking like some tramp in a bad science fiction movie. I do still have my pride even if I have nothing else here...
Chapter Ten || Chapter Twelve
Author: not_from_stars
Artist(s): danceswithgary and whuffle
Media Link: DancesWithGary and Whuffle
Word Count: 37,255
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het and Slash
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Hilary Becker, Danny Quinn/Connor Temple
Summary: Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
Author’s Notes: This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the labor part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. danceswithgary made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this stork, I want to make sure she gets herthanks for that. I want to thank whuffle for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank whuffle and morrigans_eve for adding their encouragement to that of enochiansigils so that I could stick to writing this.
Three years of exile and she had stopped talking altogether. It didn’t make sense to keep trying to speak and remember words from home when there was no one to hear or understand her. She had gotten used to the silence from herself and then came to understand each of the sounds that surrounded her.
She still did her best to avoid the Australopiths that she would come across because she wasn’t sure how long their memory was. However, when she did come in contact with any of them, she started to understand enough signs and sounds from them to communicate very carefully. She didn’t want to cause them distress or make them think she was going to attack them in any way.
For the longest time she steered clear of any of them she heard or saw tracks from. She thought that it was for the best, at first. Not only did she that it was a good survival instinct after what Helen had done to one of the family groups, but also she could hear Nick’s voice in her head sometimes. He was always warning her to be careful with contact and to preserve the fossil records so there were no unanswered questions years from now when scientists studied the sites.
Sometimes, though.
Sometimes she wanted to tell the voice in her head to sod off and shove the bloody fossil record. Archaeologists and the fossil record didn’t factor in anomalies and people getting trapped somewhere they didn’t belong because they were trying to save humanity and possibly the planet. The fossil record didn’t take into account someone from modern times having to find ways to survive in the far past until they could get home. The damn fossil record didn’t have any concept of someone losing everything.
Abby’s wandering thoughts caused her to miss a step in the bluff she was trying to climb over and she felt herself falling sideways. She scrambled for purchase, trying to find some kind of crevice to dig her fingers into or the roots of something to stop her descent, but there was nothing of the kind that she could find in the few seconds that it took for her to fall.
She hit the ground hard, causing a sharp wordless cry to come from her lips. She lay there for a few moments, trying to do a quick inventory of her injuries. She didn’t think that anything was broken, well, as far as she could tell from lying prone on the ground. She took a deep breath and tried to sit up, but pain swept through her head and shoulder causing bile to rise in her throat. She swallowed the nausea, trying to see how bad she was hurt.
One thing was for sure, though, she couldn’t just stay down here like this. She would be an easy meal for any carnivorous predator that caught her scent. Injured as she was, she wouldn’t last long in a fight with anything.
She managed to get to her feet, but the world swam around her. She had at least a minor concussion. She raised her hand to touch her head and groaned as pain moved through her shoulder. It made sense, though. She had landed on her shoulder before she hit her head.
At least, that was what she thought had happened. She had been trying to twist so as not to break her neck when she hit the ground. Apparently, it had worked. She could move her shoulder only barely, but at least she could still feel everything in her body - even if a lot of it was due to pain, now.
She’d willingly take the pain over paralyzing herself out here where there was no hospital and no medical care that was for damn sure.
Feeling something on her face, she reached her uninjured hand to her head and her hand came away sticky with blood. Hurt was bad, but bleeding was even worse. She had to find somewhere safe to take shelter so she could stop the bleeding. The blood would attract a predator in no time, so she needed to get to a safe haven.
She needed to find shelter near water because she didn’t know how long she might need to deal with the head injury.
Those were her last thoughts as the world swam out of focus and everything went dark.
When she became aware of her surroundings again, she could swear that she was moving. Everything felt like it was on fire, but there was something holding her arms against her sides. Had she broke her arms when she fell again and she just couldn’t feel them? She swallowed past the pain and opened her eyes, only to blink for a moment.
The eyes that met hers weren’t human - though she knew that one day they would be. She gazed up at a face that she thought she recognized from one of the few Australopiths she had interacted with over the last few months or year. She could hear others of his clan moving around them, and then realized with a start that he was carrying her.
When she tried to turn her head, he made a sound of disapproval. He didn’t sound angry or like he was going to hurt her, but obviously, he didn’t want her to move. She would have been curious about how they had found her and why they were carrying her away, but the pain flared and she blacked out again.
The next time she opened her eyes it was because she felt water on her head and on her face. When she couldn’t see immediately, she made a sound of distress, afraid she had fallen into a river or something while she was unconscious. She struggled, but felt herself being firmly held down. She could hear herself making sounds of fear and worry - even if they were wordless. In response, something was lifted off of her face and she blinked from the sudden glare of sunlight.
Another face was peering down at her and it was a different member of the Austropalith group. This one was female and she was holding a bunch of wet leaves in one of her hands. The female shook the leaves, dunked them in the water and then pressed them to her face again. It took her a few tries, but Abby finally realized that the other female was trying to get her to chew or suck on the leaves.
Water.
They were trying to get her to drink water and the best way they could think of to do it had been to soak leaves from the trees in the nearby river she could now hear clearly and press them against her lips.
They were taking care of her.
For some reason, when they had found her injured, they had brought her to the river and they were taking care of her. She wasn’t sure why they had decided to do this, but she was amazed and touched by their concern for a creature that wasn’t one of them.
As she sucked on the leaves to get the moisture into her body that she needed, she felt fingers moving carefully through her hair. Even though she didn’t understand what they were saying to each other, she could feel their concern for her injuries - as well as their curiosity over the way she looked and how she was different than what they were used to.
Different, but there were obviously things they realized they had in common with her since they were going through such great lengths to help her.
These were the people she had lost everything to protect and as she lost consciousness again, she felt even closer to them than she had before. Before, she was saving them because they were her ancestors. Now, she was glad that she had because they were more than just her ancestors. They were people and they were amazing. They were everything that was right about humanity’s existence.
It took her some days before she was able to move on her own and in that entire time, the family group never left her. She was cared for like she was one of their own. A child in their eyes, for sure, even with how old she was in her world. She was injured and vulnerable and instead of leaving her to be killed and eaten, they had brought her to their territory and were taking care of her.
They brought her berries and plants to eat and she discovered that if it was in small pieces, she could eat the raw meat that they offered her. Her body needed the protein and nutrition that the meat supplied her and she began to get used to eating it raw - though she amused them endlessly when she would clean the meat in the water to get all traces of blood off of it. They weren’t at the stage of evolution where humans discovered fire and cooking yet, and she wasn’t about to change history in such a major way.
She spent a great deal of time watching them and interacting with them as best as she could. She learned a little of the way that they communicated and she was able to duplicate some of the signals and sounds that they used.
The first time they saw her cry, though, she gave them reason for alarm.
She hadn’t been aware of the tears at first. She had gotten lost in her thoughts while working on cleaning some kind of skin with them. (She refused to feel guilty for teaching this group how to use stones as tools for things. They had saved her life and this was the best way she could think of to repay them for that kindness. The bloody fossil record could just sod off where this family group was concerned in her eyes.)
She was scraping at the skin with the edge of a sharp rock when she thought about how much Sarah would have enjoyed being here and getting to know these creatures. Connor would have loved it, too. She didn’t realize she was crying until one of the family with her made high keening noises and started trying to press something against her eyes.
She wasn’t allowed to move from the shelter for the rest of that day and had to lay quietly with leaves covering her eyes. The family - her family - had apparently thought that something was wrong with her eyes and that the tears were another type of blood. Blood they were all too familiar with, tears, not so much. She had no way to get them to understand the difference, so in the end, it was just easier for her to obey their physical and vocal insistence that she lay down and keep the leaves over her eyes until they decided that she was capable of moving around with them again.
Of course, since she didn’t have anything else to do except lie there, it gave her mind plenty of time to think about things she didn’t particularly want to…
…like the feel of Becker holding her close to him when they were together in his bed or hers. Or the way Connor’s face lit up when he discovered some new scientific gadget. The way Danny smelled when he hugged her…
Thoughts, which in turn, made her feel extremely guilty. She wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her best friends in that way. It was okay to think about Becker like that because until all of this had happened with Helen, he had been hers. He had been hers and she had been his, so thinking about him in a physical way was permissible. Danny and Connor had never had that kind of relationship with her, so she shouldn’t have been thinking of them in such a way. It wasn’t right and it was disloyal to Becker.
There were several things that people probably could call her and had in her past, but one thing she wasn’t was disloyal. Whether you had her heart or her friendship - or both - she had always been incredibly loyal. Some would have said almost blindly so. She had never once - ever - considered cheating on Becker, so why now was she thinking of her other two friends in such a way?
She tried to sit up, but she was pushed gently, but firmly, back down. She knew it was useless to protest when they were in their caregiver mode, so she allowed herself to be pushed back down. Once she did that, something was slipped gently beneath her head and she felt one of them place something against her mouth. She had apparently not eaten enough for their liking today and they worried that her leaking eyes would make her weak. She wasn’t hungry, but dutifully she opened her mouth to eat what they were feeding her. The texture was like a mushroom and since she was used to them here, she chewed it and swallowed. After they fed her a few more of them and gave her water, they left her to rest.
She really couldn't call it a normal kind of resting. She could feel herself coming in and out of sleep and she could hear the movements of the family group around her, but soon she wasn't even aware of them. She felt ill and everything inside her seemed to be trembling. It was when she realized that she couldn't feel her hands or her legs that she just closed her eyes and let herself be carried away.
When her eyes opened again,the scene she found herself in was nothing like she had expected.
"Becker? Danny?" Her voice came out in a low questioning tone, but there were no words. All that escaped was a tone that she couldn't turn into words. The power of speech had deserted her a long time ago.
The two men that were on the bed turned and as one, they reached for her. Her hands had barely touched theirs when she felt another body press against hers from the back. The gentle lips along her neck could only belong to Connor. That was the only one that made sense since Danny and Becker were pulling her towards them and onto the bed.
"Don't be afraid, Abby my girl," Becker murmured, pulling her down between him and Danny. "Everything's all right. You're right where you belong -- with the people that love you."
Abby made a confused noise in her throat, looking around her at the three men that were all looking at her with love shining in their eyes.
"I know, love," Danny said, dipping his head to kiss along the curve of her neck. "You're not sure what's happening or even if any of this is real. But for right now, it's real."
Abby whimpered, her eyes turning to look at Becker in question as she felt a set of fingers that weren't his stroking the inside of her thigh. She shivered at the touch, reaching for Becker, to get him to tell her what was happening.
"Relax, Abs," she heard Connor say before she felt his lips along the lower part of her back. "Don't worry about anything right now and just let us take care of you."
A finger slid inside her and she couldn't help the moan that came from her throat -- even as Becker pulled her face to his and kissed her deeply. It was a hungry kiss and it was a kiss of possession. She pressed her body towards him, one hand running down his chest until she felt his erection in her hand. She squeezed gently, and was rewarded by a groan from her boyfriend.
To her surprise, though, Becker smiled and moved her hand, stroking her arm as he pushed her onto her back. "As much as I love your touch and the way you can get me ready to lose myself with just a stroke of your hand, this isn't about me right now. This is about you."
"And what we're going to do to you," Danny added as he ducked down to take one of her breasts into his mouth. She arched up as his lips tugged at her nipples. He did that for a moment before letting go and looking into her eyes. "We're going to show you everything, love. We're going to do so much to you that you won't know how to react to all of the pleasure that we're giving you."
She felt fingers questing along her ass and she squirmed slightly. Her thoughts were all jumbled and confused. These three men, her boyfriend and her two best friends were telling her that all three of them were going to shag her quite thoroughly. This was nothing that she had ever thought about and she certainly had never expected to be given such attention by three men that were so close to her.
As if he could hear her thoughts -- and long before she had disappeared into the past Becker had usually been able to tell what she was thinking -- Becker leaned down and kissed her again before he moved back. Smiling, he met her eyes as he reached down to curl his own hand around his cock and stroked it lightly. Abby whimpered, watching him. When Becker saw how her eyes were trained on him, he gave her a grin before bending over her and running the tip along her lips. His touch was very light and he didn't allow his cock to rest against her lips. He barely brushed it against her mouth, smiling at the want that was filling her eyes.
"You want this, don't you love? You want me to bury myself deep in your throat and watch you as you work my cock with your mouth." Abby moaned softly and he grinned, brushing against her lips again. He knew what it did to her when he talked like this. He also knew that one of her favorite things to do was to use her mouth on him. "Don't worry, love, you will. I plan to make you work your mouth a great deal tonight. But, Danny and Connor are going to work on you, too." Abby's sudden gasp and shudder made him grin again. "Ah. I see that Connor has started using his fingers on your gorgeous arse." When he watched her eyes widen, he nodded. "Oh yes, love. We have you right where you belong and all three of us are going to show you that you're ours and that we love you no matter what."
While he was talking, Abby felt her legs spread apart and the next thing she knew, Danny had thrust inside her with only a soft warning. She arched up against him, her throat convulsing as she tried to speak. Good. Oh god, Connor and Danny were making her feel so good. She tried to gather her thoughts, but it was hard when she was getting stroked and caressed by Connor's fingers and Danny's cock. Finally she managed to look up at Becker again, a clear want shining in her eyes.
He smiled softly. "I love you, Abby my girl." He leaned closer, brushing her lips with the tip of his erection and Abby opened her mouth, reaching for him...
...only to wake up on the floor of a cave spitting out the wet leaves she had caused herself to choke on when she inhaled deeply.
She curled on her side, misery sweeping through her. It was a dream, nothing more. Or, maybe not quite a dream as she thought about the last thing she had eaten before sleeping. A hallucination, then. A very real hallucination caused by a mix of the mushrooms and berries she had been fed. A hallucination that made her feel even more alone than ever before.
Her choking had alerted her caretakers and they were immediately there, cleaning off her face and smoothing her hair back. She saw concern in their eyes and for a moment, she was very confused. She looked past one of them to see that the shadows cast by the sun had changed position from where they were the last time she had taken note of them. How long had she been like that?
She made a sound that she had learned and pointed at the sky, then pointed at herself, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, some of the group were communicating among themselves and finally one of the females stomped on the ground three times. What she met was clear to Abby. The night had come three times while she slept.
Another of the females brought a handful of wet leaves and placed them against Abby's lips, wanting her to drink. The water helped and Abby realized that she hadn't had enough to drink. From the faces of the family group, she had been ill. That's why they were wetting her face and making sure she sucked on the leaves.
She had been ill. That would explain why her body felt so wrung out and weak. She wasn't sure what had caused her to take ill, but it was clear that her Austropalith family hadn't understood her illness, either.
While the being ill explained away the condition of her body, but it certainly didn't explain the reason she had experienced such a vivid hallucination of Becker, Danny and Connor all making love to her at the same time. It didn't make any sense and she had never dreamt of anything like that before.
So why did the loss of that hallucination feel painful bordering on despair?
...it scares me. I think that I may be seriously losing my mind. Ever since the dream I had when I was so ill, I keep having dreams like that. The dreams are always a lot of the same thing I hallucinated when I was ill. Only, they seem to increase in intensity depending on how I've been feeling that day. Sometimes I'm almost afraid to go to sleep because I can tell that I'll have one of those dreams. It makes me feel guilty that I don't only dream of Becker. Oh, I have plenty of dreams where it's just the two of us -- but I'm also having dreams of the four of us. It doesn't seem right that I should be doing that. I feel like I'm cheating on Becker in my dreams. I know that it's insane. After three years, he has to have moved on and found someone else. After three years, he must have gotten over me. But I can't stop the guilt I feel when I realize that I've had another one of those dreams. He may no longer be mine, but I still consider myself his. He still has my heart and my soul. Granted, I have feelings for Danny and for Connor, too, but I was with Becker and I would never have done anything to hurt him or betray him. I never would have cheated on him or made him doubt how much I love him. I would especially not do anything with his two best mates. What kind of person would that make me if I could do something like that to such a wonderful and loving man like Becker? I would never be unfaithful to him. Never.
Or at least, I would only do it in my mind, apparently. Faithful in body, unfaithful in my mind.
It's almost winter here now, I think. It's gotten colder and the nights are getting longer again. My Austropalith family have moved on to seek someplace to hibernate for the winter, I believe. They were spending a lot of time gathering up food and supplies. I showed them how to carry water it the hollows of some stones and made sure they had the weapons we had made together. Yeah, the weapons are not normal for this time period or even for them at their stage of evolution, but I had to do something to give them a better chance. They took care of me and adopted me into their clan and I want them to have a fighting chance with anything they come across that's bigger than they are. Cutter and Stephen would turn in their graves for me messing up the archaeological records like this, but they're not the one that was hurt and dying and that was taken in and cared for by these creatures. I owed them the best that I could do with what we have hear to help them. They have spears made with sticks and blades made with sharp rocks. While they made their kind of spears, I made mine. I didn't dare give them my blades for weapons as that would be even harder to justify later. But they seemed happy with what I showed them and none of them tried to take my spears from me. The hilts of two of my knives were beyond repair, so I used them as the blades for my new spears. One spear is taller then me and one is a few inches shorter. They wobble when I throw them, but that's to be expected. I've never had to make my own weapons before. The first few times I used them, I had to keep repairing them, but by now I have developed a way to keep the blades on the sticks no matter how hard they hit.
I'm going to be alone again. They left to hibernate and I'm following some of the herds south. Surprisingly enough, the cave I was staying in before I got hurt was undisturbed. Most of my supplies were still there. The only thing that wasn't there that I desperately need is a change of clothes, but it's not like I expected to need a change of clothing when we started all of this three years ago. I can only do so many more repairs on these before I'm wearing little more than shorts and bra. I am not going to start running around the Pleistocene looking like some bad film version of an amazon. I've learned to make tools and other things out here in the last three years. I'm pretty sure that I can figure out how to sew the shreds of blankets together or even a skin or something to make sure that I stay covered up. If I'm going to live out the rest of my life in this damn place and then die here, I am not going to end this existence looking like some tramp in a bad science fiction movie. I do still have my pride even if I have nothing else here...
Chapter Ten || Chapter Twelve