Across The Borders Of Time (14/14)
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 her thanks 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.
Abby was feeling listless and tired.
She hunted for herself and Cutter and prepared the extra meat to be dried in the best way she could with what existed in this time. There was plenty of food for them for the next few days, maybe even a few weeks if she stretched it out carefully so that she wouldn't have to go hunting again any time soon.
Not that game was scarce. It was quite the opposite, actually. There was plenty of game to hunt and there was a great deal of greenery and berries and mushrooms -- not to mention the fish in the rivers. Even with winter returning, she and her wolf companion were in no danger of starving. If Cutter got hungry before she did, she knew he would disappear to hunt on his own and then return when he had his fill.
Problem was, sometimes he dragged his bigger prey back to the cave and wanted to share it with her.
No, it wasn't the lack of hunting that had Abby wondering how long her current supplies would last her. It was something that most of the people who knew her would have been concerned about.
She had no energy and no drive to keep going like she had been.
She sat outside the cave, watching the stars appear as she rested her chin on her knees. Cutter was sitting on his haunches next to her and his head was against her legs as he kept watch on the valley below. There was a breeze blowing through the area, but except for the occasional absent-minded brushing of her hair out of her eyes, Abby didn't really notice the weather changing as she sat out there.
She was just too tired to keep this up any longer.
According to her notes and calculations, it was almost five years since she had been trapped here. Five years and there was no sign of a rescue mission or even of an anomaly. She had been all over this place and there hadn't even been a small anomaly or something up in the sky -- she had seen those before, after all. She had hiked, hunted, migrated with the herds and nothing ever changed.
She wasn't going to ever get back home.
Tears started sliding down her cheeks as she thought about that and as her mind finally accepted her fate. She had held on for so long and she just didn't have the ability to keep hope up any longer. She had tried, god knew she had tried, but even her stubbornness had its limits and she had finally reached that point. Her loved ones were never going to come. She accepted that now. Oh, she didn't doubt they had tried to find her as she knew them too well to think they hadn't tried. The problem that she understood with such a search was that the Pleistocene Era had covered so many years and so much territory. Unless they had gone through the exact same anomaly as she had, there was no way for them to locate exactly where in this time she was. They would try and they would experiment and they would program coordinates after coordinates, but she knew what would have eventually happened.
No matter how much they worked on finding her, Abby knew that they would be forced to give up and stop the work they were doing on locating her. They would never do that willingly and she knew that Lester would do his best to keep them at their work and searches.
However, as much as he wanted to be, there were times that Lester wasn't the last and final word on what happened with the ARC. No, that responsibility went to the Minister and he wouldn't let them waste resources forever on searching for her. She knew how these things worked. She would be declared death, a person who died while performing a secret service to her country. (And the removal of Helen Cutter as a threat would certainly be considered as a great service to the Minister.) There would have been a funeral for those that loved her and then they would be forced to move on and return to their previous assigned ARC duties.
And that would be the end of it. Eventually, she would be forgotten. Her loved ones would continue to mourn her, but bit by bit, even they would finally let go of her and move on with their lives.
And that really was as it should be.
She accepted that.
After all, five years was a long time to keep holding out for a miracle. Most people would have probably given up long before now. She had just forced herself to hold on longer than normal because she was stubborn and she knew of the stubbornness of her loved ones back home.
She knew how determined Becker would have been to find all of them no matter what the cost or the time, but even he would have been forced to let go of her and proceed with his life.
Abby swallowed back the sob that rose in her throat. She would have wanted Becker to move on and find happiness in his life again. She wouldn't have wanted him to deal with the grief and loss for as long as she had been dealing with it. She wouldn't have wanted him to be eaten alive with grief and anger about what had happened to her. The idea of him being in any kind of pain tore at her heart.
She buried her face against her knees, crying silently into her legs. She had tried so hard to hold onto hope, but she just didn't have the strength for it any longer. She was just so tired and she couldn't live like this any longer. The disappointment and grief every day was beginning to crush her and she wasn't sure how much longer she could survive it.
Better to stop fighting against it and just give in to the fact that she was never going to get out of this place and time.
The next morning when the sun came up, Abby didn't leave the cave. She had plenty of food and water with her, so there wasn't much reason she could see to go out for the day. Everything she had done previously had been done all in the hopes of being prepared for when she found the way home. Now that she had become resigned to the reality of her situation, she didn't need to spend so much time being prepared.
She didn't get up from where she had laid down the night before, feeling herself drifting in and out of sleep. It wasn't a very restful sleep, but it was something that passed the time. Every so often, she heard Cutter leave the caves, but he always came back to lay down next to her.
She lost track of how many days went past her like that -- with her just laying listlessly on her pallet or sitting with her back against the wall as she retreated further and further into herself. There was no reason to get up from her pallet or stone seat and go about the cave as she used to, It wasn't like there was anything she could do that would change her circumstances. It would make the most sense if she just gave up and let herself fade away. She was pretty sure that starving herself to death wouldn't be the best way to test her strength. Using her knife on her didn't even enter her mind. She wasn't actively going to take her life, but she wasn't going to fight to survive and live like this. She would just stop fighting and let whatever happened to her happen. There was no getting around it. She was stuck in this place forever and she really didn't have the strength any longer to wait for a rescue that was never going to come.
She accepted that she wasn't going home again. She wasn't even going to battle against the ennui that was enveloping her so tightly and deeply. Five years was a long time to be in hell, but for those five years she tried her best to hold on to some kind of hope or plan to get back to her own time. Everybody had a breaking point and she knew that she was beyond hers.
After a few weeks, she ventured outside if the cave with all of her supplies packed up with her. She had to find a different shelter. She couldn't defend the labyrinth of caves any longer from predators with the weak and shaky condition that she was in.
She fully expected Cutter to run off on her because he would be able to tell that she was so obviously ill. But he never went too far away from her right side. There was something in the Dire Wolf that had decide Abby was his pack and therefore he would help her find food and stay with her so she wasn't attacked and she didn't die from what sickness she was fighting in herself.
Abby didn't know where they were going, but they were leaving the cave that held five years of hopes and memories that she just couldn't deal with any longer. She given it her best shot over the last five years, but there came a time where reality needed to be face and now she was being forced to face that reality. She was never getting home. No one was ever going to find her all of the way out here. She didn't doubt that many valiant attempts had been tried, but after all of this time, it was obviously that any attempt at searching for her had failed.
She just hoped that searching for her hadn't cost any lives. She wouldn't have wanted that to have happened and she didn't think that she was worth any loss of life. It was just how she felt.
She strapped her knife to her hip and the shorter of her two spears to her back. The largest spear she used as a staff, having the weapon right in her hands in case she suddenly needed it. Cutter watched all of these preparations and when Abby wrapped her cloak/blanket around her shoulders, he took that as a sign that it was time to leave the cave and follow her wherever she had decided to go. The Dire Wolf didn't always understand this creature's need to leave such a warm place when it was cold out, but he wouldn't let her go alone. She was his and he would protect her no matter how much he didn't understand her actions.
Abby carefully made her way down the rocks and cliff face from the caves that had been her touchstone over and over again since she had been trapped in this place. She hadn't stayed there all of the time, but it was a good base of operations to keep returning to for the winter after long hunts.
It was winter now, but she wouldn't be coming back to that cave. She had to find another shelter that she would need to make into a permanent home for her and Cutter. A home where they would start over with logic and reality. There was nothing else to do. It was far past time for her to accept that this was going to be her home until she died.
She already looked like she was part of this world. She had forgot how to speak the actual words that were in her head because she had lost the habit of talking with the fact that she was here alone. She communicated with the signals and the sounds that the Austropaliths had taught her every time she stayed with them. She had learned to skin her hunts and use things to sew some kind of clothing the best way that she could. They wouldn't win any fashion awards, but they kept her warm for the most part and they kept her covered. Her covering were one of the things that the Austropaliths found amusing and interesting about her. They had natural fur and she had to create hers. She could see why they would be intrigued and amused by that.
Abby and Cutter walked all day. When night came, she found some trees for them to settle beneath for the night. It was cold, but she tightened her skin around her and Cutter curled up next to her on her other side. As long as the wind didn't pick up before morning, she would be all right and wouldn't fall ill again. She had gotten ill one time here before when she was alone and it was not the most comfortable thing to have to go through. She was determined to avoid that fate as much as she could.
The next morning when the sun first began to rise above the horizon, Abby continued walking again. They had put a great deal of distance from her caves, but she wanted to put even more space between them and her so that she didn't change her mind and go back to them. To go back to them would mean staying there near the site the anomaly had dropped her five years ago. To go back to them would mean that she was still holding out hope that someone was going to find her and she was going to get back home.
It wasn't going to happen and she wasn't going to continue to be stupid enough to to hold onto childish desires when she knew that the reality of her situation was far from hopeful.
On the third day of constant moving, Abby spotted some caves that could prove useful for what she wanted and needed in order to settle in for a long stay. The cave had an overhang that dipped further out from the opening of the cave -- giving both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain if she wanted to sit outside of the cave. Inside the cave, there were different passages that could be used as different rooms. The bigger chamber at the back was what she would turn into her sleeping space. She could cook in one of the passages closer to the cave opening and use one of the passages for storage of food and water.
It would make a good home for as long as she was stuck living out here. It wasn't your typical house, but it was certainly a practical one for the situation she was in. It didn't take her long to get her possessions set up like she wanted and needed to have them. It wasn't like she had all that many possessions with her.
Once that was done she moved back to the sleeping space with some water and the mushrooms she had become addicted to. If she couldn't be with her loved ones in reality, she would let the risk of the mushrooms she ingested take her to them.
… in the long run, I think that changing locations was probably a good thing for me. For so long I had stayed in that one area because it was close to where the anomaly had been. I wanted to have a shelter close by it so I would know when it opened and I could return home, but it never happened. I did my best. I stayed in the same area as much as I could for five years and the anomaly never returned. The rapid cycles of hope and despair each day finally got to be too much for me to handle. Better to just accept the reality of my situation and go on from there. Trying to go on is hard, though. For so long I held onto a shred of hope, but now even that is gone. Even the mushrooms can only help so much. For a little while, I’m with the people I love, but all too soon the hallucination wears off and I’m back here alone with my memories and the images in my mind that seem to be fading. It’s like my past and everything I once knew is nothing more than a wisp of smoke that is rising up into the air just out of reach as it dissipates in front of me.
I’ve never really been the religious sort, but I think that this is what Hell must be - being alone and trapped far away from everyone and everything you’ve ever known and love. Hell is a place where you are forced to learn your strength of character and either fail or succeed at the tests that are continuously thrown your way as you try to hang on to your shreds of sanity and find hope where there is no longer room for it. It’s hoping to see the people you love one more time and having to deal with the reality that it’s never going to happen and that your life is now far out of your reach. Hell is being alone when you finally found love and a place among a family where you are accepted and feel that you belong - that you are loved and cherished no matter what you say or think or do. On the other hand, Heaven must be the place that you get to go after you go through Hell and get to say goodbye to the people you have loved and lost or who have affected you in some way. Heaven must be the place where you feel safe and secure and you know that all of the trials you have been through have brought you to that one place finally full of rest and love. It’s the place that you finally get to make amends with the people you didn’t get to fix things with before they died ahead of you. It’s the place where you finally have the right and the opportunity to say your thanks or tell them how much they affected or changed your life.
So what does this mean for me? Did I die as soon as I went through that anomaly with the purpose and intent of killing Helen? Did I die then or did I die when I killed Helen? Did I consign myself to a realm of Hell as soon as I made the decision to follow Helen and kill her? It may not have mattered to whatever god there is - if there is - that me killing Helen would save so many other lives. It does make a kind of sense that taking her life cost me my life. A kind of checks and balances, I guess. After all, we know in Science that every action has an equal or opposite reaction. Killing Helen killed me and that’s what keeps everything in check. It sounds rather rational and fluid when you think about it. Maybe my death was the price required to save the future and prevent the world that Helen said mankind created. A price was needed to neutralize Helen and that price was my life. I can see that, now. I’ve been stuck in this forever world of silence and darkness because I wasn’t ready to admit and accept the price that had to be paid for what I had done.
I thought at one time that I was stronger and a better person than Helen Cutter could ever be. I assumed that no matter what happened to me, I would handle it more rationally than we had seen Helen deal with things. But I know now that it’s just not true. Helen did this for over eight years and I barely managed to last five. I don’t know how she did it and I probably don’t want to know. After all, if this is akin to Hell, then doesn’t that mean that Helen’s sentence would have been longer than mine because of all of the people she’s murdered or caused to die? Or, did I end her sentence prematurely when I began mine? Did killing her somehow end her punishment in this hell? I’m not sure that I like that thought after everything that she had done to my friends and my family - not to mention innocent people we know nothing about. Or the Austrapolith family group that she murdered before I was able to get to her. Who knows who else she might have hurt or killed that weren’t connected to the ARC in some way? That’s not even taking into account the people that were killed in the future because of those predator things that she helped create. As far as I’m concerned, those deaths are on her head, as well.
It doesn’t sit well with me that I may have saved her from her fate of a longer sentence in this kind of Hell by killing her. There wasn’t any choice, I know, and I would do it again. But if this was supposed to be her punishment like it has obviously become mine, then how was she able to come and go as she pleased? That’s the part I still don’t understand. Why was she allowed to escape her Hell over and over again after everything that she had done, but my crime - which was so much less than hers - sentenced me to a neverending residency of this place? I don’t understand and it doesn’t seem right. She’s killed a great many people and I have only killed her. I only killed her to save millions or billions more lives. Shouldn’t that be something that counts in my favor?
The sun has almost set and even with the adjustments my vision have made to the lack of light, it’s still almost too dark for me to keep writing. But I’m forgetting events and people more and more every day and that frightens me.
I remember every aspect of Becker’s face, but the memory is not as solid as it once was. It becomes more and more ghost like every day. But isn’t that what Helen told me that day, that my memories would fade away? It’s happening and has been happening. I can remember that Nick had blue eyes and reddish hair, but I can’t recall his face. I know that Stephen was strong and vulnerable, but it’s hard to call up an image of his face. It’s happening with all of them: Danny, Connor, Sarah, Lester, Jenny … the outlines of their faces are in my mind, but the images are lacking clarity and detail.
I think that losing those memories and those people is an even worse punishment than being trapped here.
Our memories and our experiences make up who we are, they make us human. Without them, who are we?
Who am I?
It was four months after she moved locations that things began changing. Abby was ill and she knew she was ill.
She wasn’t sure what was exactly wrong with her, only that her energy was starting to drain more easily each day and it was harder and harder for her to hunt sometimes. The hand that held her spear today was trembling as she walked and her pack seemed heavier than normal. That was worrisome. If she couldn’t hunt successfully or couldn’t find food of another kind, she would die.
While she was ready for all of this to be over, it wasn’t a slow death from illness that she wanted to have to endure. A quick death from a predator? Yes. Wasting away from her body deciding to break down? No. That was not what she was willing to allow happen.
The fact that she was ill and feverish would be the reason that she didn’t notice the tell tale shimmering shards that suddenly appeared a few feet to the side of her. Cutter noticed it right away and started growling, placing himself against Abby’s legs as if to protect her from whatever was attacking them.
His growls pulled her from her inner worries and she stared dumbfounded as the anomaly opened completely.
If it wasn’t for the way that Cutter was reacting, she would have thought she was hallucinating the appearance of an anomaly. But no, it wasn’t a hallucination - or else why would the wolf be trying to push her in the opposite direction of it?
She stepped toward it, Cutter snapping at her leg, trying to stop her from approaching the strange thing. Abby stopped, putting her hand on his head to attempt to calm him. The wolf trembled against her, but he didn’t try using his teeth to get her to move away again. She stared at the anomaly, all kinds of thoughts going through her head.
It was highly unlikely that this anomaly would take her anywhere close to home. It was in a different location from the one that brought her here and it was the first one that she had seen in over five years.
However.
However, it was the first anomaly she had seen in five years and it could take her out of her personal hell and put her somewhere that she could better adapt to or regain her sanity and her health again.
Of course, there was also the likelihood that it would deposit her somewhere much worse than this where no amount of adaptation could keep her alive for very long. Dinosaurs that she couldn’t out run or something.
There was also the chance that it might take her right to the Cretaceous, putting her back in the original era that she, Danny and Connor had all entered into when they started their chase after Helen. While the chances of the two of them still being alive in the Cretaceous were slim, there was still a chance. After all, she had stayed alive on her own in this place for a little more than five years. Danny and Connor had each other to look after and she knew what kind of determination the two of them had.
She looked from the anomaly back to Cutter.
The Dire Wolf would be out of place in the Cretaceous if that was where this anomaly was going to end up taking her. Then again, so would she. It would probably be easier for future scientists to explain away the bones of a wolf than of a human.
She had to take this chance. With the way she was functioning, she could die before another anomaly opened up in this place. Yes, she could die on the other side of this, but at least she did something. She took a deep breath, stroking the wolf’s head before she removed her hand and shifted her pack on her back. Clutching her spear, she took another breath and started walking towards the anomaly.
She wasn’t surprised when he easily caught up to her and walked at her side and she smiled.
For good or bad, they were getting out of here
When Becker, Connor and Danny got to the anomaly site, it had already fully opened. Becker’s men were already in position, their guns locked on the target while Connor got his equipment set up to lock it down.
“Sir, there’s something trying to come through.”
Becker tried to steady his breathing as he looked at Connor. “Lock it down, Connor.”
Connor nodded, his face grim as he started keying in the coordinates to lock the anomaly until it shut down on its own.
“Captain Becker!”
“Lock it down, Connor!”
“I’m trying! Something must have already started through -“
“Oh, hell,” Danny cursed when the large wolf came through with his hackles raised and his lips pulled back to show an impressive set of teeth.
Connor made a sort of strangled whimpering noise. “Nice puppy,” he murmured. “Now don’t eat anyone and we’ll get you back home where you belong.”
The wolf turned his head to look at Danny and he stepped towards him since he was closer. One of the soldiers brought up his EMD, aiming at the wolf. The wolf snapped his teeth warningly at Danny, before stopping and turning to look at the soldier who had stepped closer.
“Take the shot,” Becker ordered his man.
The wolf looked like he was going to leap at the soldier, and the soldier lifted his gun to fire.
What happened next was a blur. They all heard a deep-throated growl, then the high whine of the EMD, followed by a sharp cry and a thud as something hit the ground.
“Oh my god,” Connor breathed as he took in the scene in front of them.
The wolf hadn’t been hit by the EMD, but the person he was now standing over protectively had been. Connor couldn’t see the person’s face, but he would recognize that blond hair anywhere - even if it was much longer and a lot dirtier.
“Abby?” Becker’s voice was choked. “Abby?”
Danny didn’t even wait for her to be identified for sure before he was on the soldier that had shot her.
It took a few minutes to get the scene under control.
Connor pulled Danny off of the first soldier while another soldier was ordered to tranquilize the wolf.
“Don’t hurt him,” Becker snapped. “Abby was protecting him so that means she knows him and he’s important to her. Hurt him and you’re fired.”
All of the men turned to look at Becker in confusion.
“Sir?” One of them questioned.
“You heard me. The woman is Abby Maitland.”
The men gasped and one of them pushed his way through the rest of them. “Captain, are sure? Are you sure it’s really her?”
Becker looked at the soldier asking him and nodded. “I’m sure, but once we get the wolf sedated, we can make a secure identification.” He swallowed hard. “Abby has finally come home.”
Thirteen
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 her thanks 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.
Abby was feeling listless and tired.
She hunted for herself and Cutter and prepared the extra meat to be dried in the best way she could with what existed in this time. There was plenty of food for them for the next few days, maybe even a few weeks if she stretched it out carefully so that she wouldn't have to go hunting again any time soon.
Not that game was scarce. It was quite the opposite, actually. There was plenty of game to hunt and there was a great deal of greenery and berries and mushrooms -- not to mention the fish in the rivers. Even with winter returning, she and her wolf companion were in no danger of starving. If Cutter got hungry before she did, she knew he would disappear to hunt on his own and then return when he had his fill.
Problem was, sometimes he dragged his bigger prey back to the cave and wanted to share it with her.
No, it wasn't the lack of hunting that had Abby wondering how long her current supplies would last her. It was something that most of the people who knew her would have been concerned about.
She had no energy and no drive to keep going like she had been.
She sat outside the cave, watching the stars appear as she rested her chin on her knees. Cutter was sitting on his haunches next to her and his head was against her legs as he kept watch on the valley below. There was a breeze blowing through the area, but except for the occasional absent-minded brushing of her hair out of her eyes, Abby didn't really notice the weather changing as she sat out there.
She was just too tired to keep this up any longer.
According to her notes and calculations, it was almost five years since she had been trapped here. Five years and there was no sign of a rescue mission or even of an anomaly. She had been all over this place and there hadn't even been a small anomaly or something up in the sky -- she had seen those before, after all. She had hiked, hunted, migrated with the herds and nothing ever changed.
She wasn't going to ever get back home.
Tears started sliding down her cheeks as she thought about that and as her mind finally accepted her fate. She had held on for so long and she just didn't have the ability to keep hope up any longer. She had tried, god knew she had tried, but even her stubbornness had its limits and she had finally reached that point. Her loved ones were never going to come. She accepted that now. Oh, she didn't doubt they had tried to find her as she knew them too well to think they hadn't tried. The problem that she understood with such a search was that the Pleistocene Era had covered so many years and so much territory. Unless they had gone through the exact same anomaly as she had, there was no way for them to locate exactly where in this time she was. They would try and they would experiment and they would program coordinates after coordinates, but she knew what would have eventually happened.
No matter how much they worked on finding her, Abby knew that they would be forced to give up and stop the work they were doing on locating her. They would never do that willingly and she knew that Lester would do his best to keep them at their work and searches.
However, as much as he wanted to be, there were times that Lester wasn't the last and final word on what happened with the ARC. No, that responsibility went to the Minister and he wouldn't let them waste resources forever on searching for her. She knew how these things worked. She would be declared death, a person who died while performing a secret service to her country. (And the removal of Helen Cutter as a threat would certainly be considered as a great service to the Minister.) There would have been a funeral for those that loved her and then they would be forced to move on and return to their previous assigned ARC duties.
And that would be the end of it. Eventually, she would be forgotten. Her loved ones would continue to mourn her, but bit by bit, even they would finally let go of her and move on with their lives.
And that really was as it should be.
She accepted that.
After all, five years was a long time to keep holding out for a miracle. Most people would have probably given up long before now. She had just forced herself to hold on longer than normal because she was stubborn and she knew of the stubbornness of her loved ones back home.
She knew how determined Becker would have been to find all of them no matter what the cost or the time, but even he would have been forced to let go of her and proceed with his life.
Abby swallowed back the sob that rose in her throat. She would have wanted Becker to move on and find happiness in his life again. She wouldn't have wanted him to deal with the grief and loss for as long as she had been dealing with it. She wouldn't have wanted him to be eaten alive with grief and anger about what had happened to her. The idea of him being in any kind of pain tore at her heart.
She buried her face against her knees, crying silently into her legs. She had tried so hard to hold onto hope, but she just didn't have the strength for it any longer. She was just so tired and she couldn't live like this any longer. The disappointment and grief every day was beginning to crush her and she wasn't sure how much longer she could survive it.
Better to stop fighting against it and just give in to the fact that she was never going to get out of this place and time.
The next morning when the sun came up, Abby didn't leave the cave. She had plenty of food and water with her, so there wasn't much reason she could see to go out for the day. Everything she had done previously had been done all in the hopes of being prepared for when she found the way home. Now that she had become resigned to the reality of her situation, she didn't need to spend so much time being prepared.
She didn't get up from where she had laid down the night before, feeling herself drifting in and out of sleep. It wasn't a very restful sleep, but it was something that passed the time. Every so often, she heard Cutter leave the caves, but he always came back to lay down next to her.
She lost track of how many days went past her like that -- with her just laying listlessly on her pallet or sitting with her back against the wall as she retreated further and further into herself. There was no reason to get up from her pallet or stone seat and go about the cave as she used to, It wasn't like there was anything she could do that would change her circumstances. It would make the most sense if she just gave up and let herself fade away. She was pretty sure that starving herself to death wouldn't be the best way to test her strength. Using her knife on her didn't even enter her mind. She wasn't actively going to take her life, but she wasn't going to fight to survive and live like this. She would just stop fighting and let whatever happened to her happen. There was no getting around it. She was stuck in this place forever and she really didn't have the strength any longer to wait for a rescue that was never going to come.
She accepted that she wasn't going home again. She wasn't even going to battle against the ennui that was enveloping her so tightly and deeply. Five years was a long time to be in hell, but for those five years she tried her best to hold on to some kind of hope or plan to get back to her own time. Everybody had a breaking point and she knew that she was beyond hers.
After a few weeks, she ventured outside if the cave with all of her supplies packed up with her. She had to find a different shelter. She couldn't defend the labyrinth of caves any longer from predators with the weak and shaky condition that she was in.
She fully expected Cutter to run off on her because he would be able to tell that she was so obviously ill. But he never went too far away from her right side. There was something in the Dire Wolf that had decide Abby was his pack and therefore he would help her find food and stay with her so she wasn't attacked and she didn't die from what sickness she was fighting in herself.
Abby didn't know where they were going, but they were leaving the cave that held five years of hopes and memories that she just couldn't deal with any longer. She given it her best shot over the last five years, but there came a time where reality needed to be face and now she was being forced to face that reality. She was never getting home. No one was ever going to find her all of the way out here. She didn't doubt that many valiant attempts had been tried, but after all of this time, it was obviously that any attempt at searching for her had failed.
She just hoped that searching for her hadn't cost any lives. She wouldn't have wanted that to have happened and she didn't think that she was worth any loss of life. It was just how she felt.
She strapped her knife to her hip and the shorter of her two spears to her back. The largest spear she used as a staff, having the weapon right in her hands in case she suddenly needed it. Cutter watched all of these preparations and when Abby wrapped her cloak/blanket around her shoulders, he took that as a sign that it was time to leave the cave and follow her wherever she had decided to go. The Dire Wolf didn't always understand this creature's need to leave such a warm place when it was cold out, but he wouldn't let her go alone. She was his and he would protect her no matter how much he didn't understand her actions.
Abby carefully made her way down the rocks and cliff face from the caves that had been her touchstone over and over again since she had been trapped in this place. She hadn't stayed there all of the time, but it was a good base of operations to keep returning to for the winter after long hunts.
It was winter now, but she wouldn't be coming back to that cave. She had to find another shelter that she would need to make into a permanent home for her and Cutter. A home where they would start over with logic and reality. There was nothing else to do. It was far past time for her to accept that this was going to be her home until she died.
She already looked like she was part of this world. She had forgot how to speak the actual words that were in her head because she had lost the habit of talking with the fact that she was here alone. She communicated with the signals and the sounds that the Austropaliths had taught her every time she stayed with them. She had learned to skin her hunts and use things to sew some kind of clothing the best way that she could. They wouldn't win any fashion awards, but they kept her warm for the most part and they kept her covered. Her covering were one of the things that the Austropaliths found amusing and interesting about her. They had natural fur and she had to create hers. She could see why they would be intrigued and amused by that.
Abby and Cutter walked all day. When night came, she found some trees for them to settle beneath for the night. It was cold, but she tightened her skin around her and Cutter curled up next to her on her other side. As long as the wind didn't pick up before morning, she would be all right and wouldn't fall ill again. She had gotten ill one time here before when she was alone and it was not the most comfortable thing to have to go through. She was determined to avoid that fate as much as she could.
The next morning when the sun first began to rise above the horizon, Abby continued walking again. They had put a great deal of distance from her caves, but she wanted to put even more space between them and her so that she didn't change her mind and go back to them. To go back to them would mean staying there near the site the anomaly had dropped her five years ago. To go back to them would mean that she was still holding out hope that someone was going to find her and she was going to get back home.
It wasn't going to happen and she wasn't going to continue to be stupid enough to to hold onto childish desires when she knew that the reality of her situation was far from hopeful.
On the third day of constant moving, Abby spotted some caves that could prove useful for what she wanted and needed in order to settle in for a long stay. The cave had an overhang that dipped further out from the opening of the cave -- giving both shade from the sun and shelter from the rain if she wanted to sit outside of the cave. Inside the cave, there were different passages that could be used as different rooms. The bigger chamber at the back was what she would turn into her sleeping space. She could cook in one of the passages closer to the cave opening and use one of the passages for storage of food and water.
It would make a good home for as long as she was stuck living out here. It wasn't your typical house, but it was certainly a practical one for the situation she was in. It didn't take her long to get her possessions set up like she wanted and needed to have them. It wasn't like she had all that many possessions with her.
Once that was done she moved back to the sleeping space with some water and the mushrooms she had become addicted to. If she couldn't be with her loved ones in reality, she would let the risk of the mushrooms she ingested take her to them.
… in the long run, I think that changing locations was probably a good thing for me. For so long I had stayed in that one area because it was close to where the anomaly had been. I wanted to have a shelter close by it so I would know when it opened and I could return home, but it never happened. I did my best. I stayed in the same area as much as I could for five years and the anomaly never returned. The rapid cycles of hope and despair each day finally got to be too much for me to handle. Better to just accept the reality of my situation and go on from there. Trying to go on is hard, though. For so long I held onto a shred of hope, but now even that is gone. Even the mushrooms can only help so much. For a little while, I’m with the people I love, but all too soon the hallucination wears off and I’m back here alone with my memories and the images in my mind that seem to be fading. It’s like my past and everything I once knew is nothing more than a wisp of smoke that is rising up into the air just out of reach as it dissipates in front of me.
I’ve never really been the religious sort, but I think that this is what Hell must be - being alone and trapped far away from everyone and everything you’ve ever known and love. Hell is a place where you are forced to learn your strength of character and either fail or succeed at the tests that are continuously thrown your way as you try to hang on to your shreds of sanity and find hope where there is no longer room for it. It’s hoping to see the people you love one more time and having to deal with the reality that it’s never going to happen and that your life is now far out of your reach. Hell is being alone when you finally found love and a place among a family where you are accepted and feel that you belong - that you are loved and cherished no matter what you say or think or do. On the other hand, Heaven must be the place that you get to go after you go through Hell and get to say goodbye to the people you have loved and lost or who have affected you in some way. Heaven must be the place where you feel safe and secure and you know that all of the trials you have been through have brought you to that one place finally full of rest and love. It’s the place that you finally get to make amends with the people you didn’t get to fix things with before they died ahead of you. It’s the place where you finally have the right and the opportunity to say your thanks or tell them how much they affected or changed your life.
So what does this mean for me? Did I die as soon as I went through that anomaly with the purpose and intent of killing Helen? Did I die then or did I die when I killed Helen? Did I consign myself to a realm of Hell as soon as I made the decision to follow Helen and kill her? It may not have mattered to whatever god there is - if there is - that me killing Helen would save so many other lives. It does make a kind of sense that taking her life cost me my life. A kind of checks and balances, I guess. After all, we know in Science that every action has an equal or opposite reaction. Killing Helen killed me and that’s what keeps everything in check. It sounds rather rational and fluid when you think about it. Maybe my death was the price required to save the future and prevent the world that Helen said mankind created. A price was needed to neutralize Helen and that price was my life. I can see that, now. I’ve been stuck in this forever world of silence and darkness because I wasn’t ready to admit and accept the price that had to be paid for what I had done.
I thought at one time that I was stronger and a better person than Helen Cutter could ever be. I assumed that no matter what happened to me, I would handle it more rationally than we had seen Helen deal with things. But I know now that it’s just not true. Helen did this for over eight years and I barely managed to last five. I don’t know how she did it and I probably don’t want to know. After all, if this is akin to Hell, then doesn’t that mean that Helen’s sentence would have been longer than mine because of all of the people she’s murdered or caused to die? Or, did I end her sentence prematurely when I began mine? Did killing her somehow end her punishment in this hell? I’m not sure that I like that thought after everything that she had done to my friends and my family - not to mention innocent people we know nothing about. Or the Austrapolith family group that she murdered before I was able to get to her. Who knows who else she might have hurt or killed that weren’t connected to the ARC in some way? That’s not even taking into account the people that were killed in the future because of those predator things that she helped create. As far as I’m concerned, those deaths are on her head, as well.
It doesn’t sit well with me that I may have saved her from her fate of a longer sentence in this kind of Hell by killing her. There wasn’t any choice, I know, and I would do it again. But if this was supposed to be her punishment like it has obviously become mine, then how was she able to come and go as she pleased? That’s the part I still don’t understand. Why was she allowed to escape her Hell over and over again after everything that she had done, but my crime - which was so much less than hers - sentenced me to a neverending residency of this place? I don’t understand and it doesn’t seem right. She’s killed a great many people and I have only killed her. I only killed her to save millions or billions more lives. Shouldn’t that be something that counts in my favor?
The sun has almost set and even with the adjustments my vision have made to the lack of light, it’s still almost too dark for me to keep writing. But I’m forgetting events and people more and more every day and that frightens me.
I remember every aspect of Becker’s face, but the memory is not as solid as it once was. It becomes more and more ghost like every day. But isn’t that what Helen told me that day, that my memories would fade away? It’s happening and has been happening. I can remember that Nick had blue eyes and reddish hair, but I can’t recall his face. I know that Stephen was strong and vulnerable, but it’s hard to call up an image of his face. It’s happening with all of them: Danny, Connor, Sarah, Lester, Jenny … the outlines of their faces are in my mind, but the images are lacking clarity and detail.
I think that losing those memories and those people is an even worse punishment than being trapped here.
Our memories and our experiences make up who we are, they make us human. Without them, who are we?
Who am I?
It was four months after she moved locations that things began changing. Abby was ill and she knew she was ill.
She wasn’t sure what was exactly wrong with her, only that her energy was starting to drain more easily each day and it was harder and harder for her to hunt sometimes. The hand that held her spear today was trembling as she walked and her pack seemed heavier than normal. That was worrisome. If she couldn’t hunt successfully or couldn’t find food of another kind, she would die.
While she was ready for all of this to be over, it wasn’t a slow death from illness that she wanted to have to endure. A quick death from a predator? Yes. Wasting away from her body deciding to break down? No. That was not what she was willing to allow happen.
The fact that she was ill and feverish would be the reason that she didn’t notice the tell tale shimmering shards that suddenly appeared a few feet to the side of her. Cutter noticed it right away and started growling, placing himself against Abby’s legs as if to protect her from whatever was attacking them.
His growls pulled her from her inner worries and she stared dumbfounded as the anomaly opened completely.
If it wasn’t for the way that Cutter was reacting, she would have thought she was hallucinating the appearance of an anomaly. But no, it wasn’t a hallucination - or else why would the wolf be trying to push her in the opposite direction of it?
She stepped toward it, Cutter snapping at her leg, trying to stop her from approaching the strange thing. Abby stopped, putting her hand on his head to attempt to calm him. The wolf trembled against her, but he didn’t try using his teeth to get her to move away again. She stared at the anomaly, all kinds of thoughts going through her head.
It was highly unlikely that this anomaly would take her anywhere close to home. It was in a different location from the one that brought her here and it was the first one that she had seen in over five years.
However.
However, it was the first anomaly she had seen in five years and it could take her out of her personal hell and put her somewhere that she could better adapt to or regain her sanity and her health again.
Of course, there was also the likelihood that it would deposit her somewhere much worse than this where no amount of adaptation could keep her alive for very long. Dinosaurs that she couldn’t out run or something.
There was also the chance that it might take her right to the Cretaceous, putting her back in the original era that she, Danny and Connor had all entered into when they started their chase after Helen. While the chances of the two of them still being alive in the Cretaceous were slim, there was still a chance. After all, she had stayed alive on her own in this place for a little more than five years. Danny and Connor had each other to look after and she knew what kind of determination the two of them had.
She looked from the anomaly back to Cutter.
The Dire Wolf would be out of place in the Cretaceous if that was where this anomaly was going to end up taking her. Then again, so would she. It would probably be easier for future scientists to explain away the bones of a wolf than of a human.
She had to take this chance. With the way she was functioning, she could die before another anomaly opened up in this place. Yes, she could die on the other side of this, but at least she did something. She took a deep breath, stroking the wolf’s head before she removed her hand and shifted her pack on her back. Clutching her spear, she took another breath and started walking towards the anomaly.
She wasn’t surprised when he easily caught up to her and walked at her side and she smiled.
For good or bad, they were getting out of here
When Becker, Connor and Danny got to the anomaly site, it had already fully opened. Becker’s men were already in position, their guns locked on the target while Connor got his equipment set up to lock it down.
“Sir, there’s something trying to come through.”
Becker tried to steady his breathing as he looked at Connor. “Lock it down, Connor.”
Connor nodded, his face grim as he started keying in the coordinates to lock the anomaly until it shut down on its own.
“Captain Becker!”
“Lock it down, Connor!”
“I’m trying! Something must have already started through -“
“Oh, hell,” Danny cursed when the large wolf came through with his hackles raised and his lips pulled back to show an impressive set of teeth.
Connor made a sort of strangled whimpering noise. “Nice puppy,” he murmured. “Now don’t eat anyone and we’ll get you back home where you belong.”
The wolf turned his head to look at Danny and he stepped towards him since he was closer. One of the soldiers brought up his EMD, aiming at the wolf. The wolf snapped his teeth warningly at Danny, before stopping and turning to look at the soldier who had stepped closer.
“Take the shot,” Becker ordered his man.
The wolf looked like he was going to leap at the soldier, and the soldier lifted his gun to fire.
What happened next was a blur. They all heard a deep-throated growl, then the high whine of the EMD, followed by a sharp cry and a thud as something hit the ground.
“Oh my god,” Connor breathed as he took in the scene in front of them.
The wolf hadn’t been hit by the EMD, but the person he was now standing over protectively had been. Connor couldn’t see the person’s face, but he would recognize that blond hair anywhere - even if it was much longer and a lot dirtier.
“Abby?” Becker’s voice was choked. “Abby?”
Danny didn’t even wait for her to be identified for sure before he was on the soldier that had shot her.
It took a few minutes to get the scene under control.
Connor pulled Danny off of the first soldier while another soldier was ordered to tranquilize the wolf.
“Don’t hurt him,” Becker snapped. “Abby was protecting him so that means she knows him and he’s important to her. Hurt him and you’re fired.”
All of the men turned to look at Becker in confusion.
“Sir?” One of them questioned.
“You heard me. The woman is Abby Maitland.”
The men gasped and one of them pushed his way through the rest of them. “Captain, are sure? Are you sure it’s really her?”
Becker looked at the soldier asking him and nodded. “I’m sure, but once we get the wolf sedated, we can make a secure identification.” He swallowed hard. “Abby has finally come home.”
Thirteen