Time Entangled (7/9)
Title: Time Entangled
Author: not_from_stars
Artist(s): skylar0grace
Media Link: Art Here
Word Count: 24,395
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Connor Temple, Stephen Hart/Abby Maitland
Summary: Having worked for the Anomaly Research Center for a few years, Nick, Stephen, Tom, Abby, Connor and Claudia thought they had seen everything. But when an incursion turns out to be people instead of rampaging animals, that's not the only shock they get. Abby and Stephen are the first on the scene when Abby and Connor come through the anomaly. Abby and Connor are from a time line where some things have gone horrible wrong. Now, not only do they have to convince this time line's version of their friends what has happened, they need to find their way back to their own home and time line. Back in their world, Becker, Danny, Sarah and Jenny are working frantically to find a way to locate their friends and bring them home. Armed with two years of notes and several journals, they're doing their best to open an anomaly and get their loved ones back because they know something that the other time line doesn't. They're running out of time.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is a complete AU and there should be no spoilers for anything.
Author’s Notes: I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. skylar0grace made me lots of awesome art to accompany this fic and I can't thank her enough for everything she did for me!
Sarah sighed as she stretched her back before getting up from the table. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting, but it was long enough for her neck to start protesting against her. She shook her head as she walked from the office down to the break room. Hopefully there was still coffee left because she really didn’t feel like waiting for a new pot to brew. She had work to get back to.
She couldn’t explain it, but she knew she was near a breakthrough on the puzzle that was the whereabouts of Connor and Abby. She could just feel that she was close - and this wasn’t a feeling she had experienced in all of the time they had been gone. She hadn’t said anything to the others because she didn’t know exactly what the breakthrough was going to be or how. With her friends in this situation, she knew that she needed to have precise details before she could tell them anything.
She entered the break room and gave the other occupant a surprised smile. “Jess? I didn’t expect to see you in here so late.”
“So early, you mean?” The redhead returned the smile. “Sarah, it’s six in the morning. Have you been here all night?” Before Sarah could answer her, Jess shook her head. “Never mind, that’s a stupid question. The lot of you have been working around the clock lately.” She bit her lip and then looked at Sarah calmly. “Has it done any good?”
Sarah was silent for a moment as she looked at Jess. Most of the others at the ARC had made remarks about them just needing to forget the missing people and get on with their lives. Jess and her boyfriend, Matt, the leader of the other team, had never said anything of the kind that Sarah could recall.
“I believe that I’m close to a solution, Jess,” she said finally. “I know that there is just one piece of the puzzle I haven’t put together, yet, and that it’s in front of me. I’m just not seeing it, yet.”
She nodded, handing Sarah a cup of coffee. “Is this the first time you’ve felt this confident about it?”
“Yeah, it is. I’ve always known that we would find them, but I haven’t ever felt this close to it until now.”
“Maybe we’re the solution,” Jess mused thoughtfully.
Sarah jerked her head up in surprise and stared at Jess. “I - what?”
Jess gave her a sympathetic smile as she went around Sarah and closed the door to the break room. “Maybe Matt and I are the key to your solution in finding them - I only wish I had thought of it earlier, because it makes so much bloody sense.” She pulled out a mobile phone and dialed a number.
Sarah continued to stare at the other woman mutely for a few moments and finally found her voice again. “Jess?” There were so many complicated questions in that one word.
“I promise, you’ll understand, soon,” Jess said before she spoke into the phone. “Matt? Are you busy right now? No? Oh good. Could you please come directly to Dr. Sarah Page’s office when you get here? I think I’ve figured part of it out. I know, but this feels right and we already know that we can trust her group - look how much time they’ve spent trying to find them already.” Jess nodded. “I know, their offices aren’t wired, I made sure of that when everything else was getting set up. All right, I’ll see you soon. Love you, too.”
Jess put away her phone and looked at Sarah with a bright smile. “Let’s go to your office where we can have privacy. Matt will be joining us there shortly.”
Bemused, Sarah followed the other woman out of the break room and down the hall to her office. She sat down in her chair, curling her hands around the coffee cup. She was beginning to get the feeling that no amount of coffee was going to be enough for what Jess and Matt were going to tell her.
And what did any of them know about the pair, anyway? They knew they had been hired as part of a secondary team so that the primary team could focus on finding Connor, Abby, and Helen. Lester had told them that the two came highly recommended, but he never said who had recommended them to him. They were certainly good at their jobs - Matt with firearms and military knowledge and Jess with all of her knowledge of communications and computers. However, other than that, their team didn’t know very much about them.
Which, Sarah reasoned, was understandable since all of their attention had been focused on their friends and not so much on the everyday running of the ARC since it was obvious it was in capable hands. Once they had known that the other team was capable of handling most things that came up, their group hadn’t felt bad about turning all of their attention on a rescue mission.
When there was a knock on the door, Jess let Matt in and then locked the door behind him. The two of them sat on chairs across from Sarah and Matt gave her a faint smile.
“I bet you’re confused and wondering if you’ll need to shoot us with that gun Becker makes you keep with you at all times,” Matt said gently. When Sarah’s eyebrow lifted, he laugh softly. “Don’t look so surprised. I would expect him to do that with you all after losing your two friends. Hell, I’ve made Jess carry a weapon of some kind for years.”
Jess nodded. “With the things all of us do, it only makes sense.”
Sarah was staring at Jess in puzzlement. The calm and cool woman sitting across from her was a far cry from the cheerful and bubbly woman she was used to seeing.
“I am very confused,” she finally admitted.
Matt looked at Jess who smiled and then he looked back at Sarah. “Jess and I are from the future.”
The shocked silence that fell over the room after Sid’s announcement lasted long enough for Nancy to show signs of getting antsy. Ryan shook his head a moment and then looked at Connor to gauge the younger man’s reaction to what he was hearing.
“I killed Helen?” There was a lot of shock and confusion in that comment. “I’ve never killed anyone.”
“I had a damn good reason,” Sid’s voice had turned cold, surprising every one even further.
Nancy leaned into him, one hand moving up to caress his face. “It’s all right, love. It’s all right. You don’t have to explain anything to them. They weren’t there. They have no idea what you went through.”
“Or you,” he corrected, closing his eyes for a moment and leaning into her touch. “I thought you were dead and that I had lost you.”
“But you didn’t. You won’t ever lose me, Connor.”
“It was a very near thing, Abby. It was a very near thing and I thought you were gone.” He swallowed. “It’s still not better and I know you’re in more pain than usual.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m here, with you, and everything will be all right.”
Ryan frowned and looked at Cutter and then Stephen. He didn’t like was he was assuming just from their cryptic conversation. He could tell that his two friends didn’t much like it, either. From what he was deducing, Helen must have done something to Abby that caused Connor to come unglued and attack her. In the attack, Helen was killed.
Cutter moved to kneel down next to the couch so he could look at the two people there.
“Connor, you need to tell us what happened in your world. I know that I’ve taught you a great deal about not corrupting time lines or fossil records, but if we’re in danger, we need to know all of the details that you can provide.” His voice was soothing, like he would use when dealing with a wild creature.
“Why, so you guys can lock us up again?” Nancy’s voice was more resigned than bitter. She was just so tired of this. Tired of not being home, tired of not knowing what was going to happen to her and Connor. She was tired of trying to be so strong day after day while her hope was diminishing. “You’re not taking him away. He had good reason to do what he did and any of you would have done the same damn thing.”
“No.” It was Abby who spoke, watching the other woman’s eyes. “I promise you, Abby, no one is going to lock either one of you up again. And no one is going to take Connor away from you. They’d have to go through me, first.”
“Through all of us,” Connor volunteered. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you while you’re here. And we’ll figure out how to get you back home. I don’t know how, but we will.”
“You can’t help us find the right anomaly to get home,” Sid said wearily as he opened his eyes to look at Cutter. “All you can do is take us to the next one that opens and let us go. We’ll go back to traveling through anomalies until we find the one that opens back into our own time.”
“And how long do you think that will take,” Stephen asked as calmly as he could manage it. “The two of you have been doing this for two years and you’re barely alive. How much longer do you think your bodies will keep up with your will?”
“I don’t know but we can’t just stay here and do nothing,” Sid said. “I promised Abby that I would get her back home before…” He clenched his jaw and looked away from them.
That didn’t bode well.
“Before what, Connor?” Ryan asked, stepping closer. “What promise did you make to Abby?”
“Don’t.” Nancy’s voice was pleading. “Don’t do this to him. You have no right to question him like this.”
“I’m sorry, Abby, but we do have the right,” Claudia said gently. “The two of you are from another time and we can see that you’re not in good condition. We found you, and it’s our responsibility to look after you and take care of you until you can get back to your own time.” Claudia looked into the other woman’s eyes and reached to squeeze her hand. “In this time, you’re one of my closest friends, Abby. I won’t let anyone hurt you or hurt Connor if I can do anything to prevent it.”
“You’re so much like Jenny,” Nancy said after a moment. “So determined, silk wrapped around a core of steel.” She lay her head back against Sid.
“Talk to us, Connor,” Cutter urged. “What did you promise Abby? You have to tell us so that we can help you keep that promise.”
“You can’t help me,” Sid said wearily. “Not with this.”
“How will you know unless you give us the chance?” Abby’s voice shook with emotion. She didn’t like seeing this other version of herself so resigned and hopeless and she really didn’t like seeing this other version of Connor so broken inside.
“Because I promised Abby that I would get her home before she died.” Sid snapped impatiently. Then he sighed, tears filling his eyes as he looked down at Nancy. “Abby’s dying and I promised her that I would get her home before that happened.”
Cutter rocked back on his heels when he heard that. He stared at the two on the sofa and then swallowed, looking at his friends. Stephen had gone pale - as had Connor. Abby had both of her hands over her mouth, and Claudia’s eyes were suspiciously bright. She could see Ryan struggling to keep his calm demeanor, but Cutter didn’t think he was going to be able to. Not with this. Not at the news that the woman in front of them that looked so much like their own friend was dying.
Surprisingly, it was Lester’s cool voice that broke the silence. “What’s wrong with Abby that you think she’s dying?” He asked calmly. “Does her condition have anything to do with why you killed Helen Cutter?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Sid said quietly, his arms tightening protectively around Nancy. “For over a year, Helen used Abby’s safety and well-being as a way to control me and get me to work with her and do what she wanted me to do. She’d hold a gun on Abby or hit her with it and I couldn’t do anything because she always threatened to kill her.”
“I got tired of it,” Nancy murmured. “I was tired of being used as a way to torture him. I would have rather been dead than let her continue to scare him and use my life as a controlling factor. She had already taken so much from us - from him. If she hadn’t grabbed me, he never would have been trapped with her. One day, she wanted Connor to work on the device she had again to make it work faster. She was holding the gun on me as she started bossing him around. She jabbed me with the gun and I just… I lost it.”
“She fought with Helen, telling me to run and get away. I couldn’t leave her. I knew what she was doing was for me, but I just couldn’t leave her behind.” He swallowed. “Helen shot her. I heard the shot and I saw Abby fall. I don’t know what I was planning to do before that, but when I saw Abby fall, I went crazy for a little bit. I attacked Helen, trying to get the gun away from her. We were on the edge of a cliff and during the fight, we went over it. I managed to get the gun and I hit her in the head with it.” He swallowed. “Several times, I think. All I could see was that she had killed Abby and I couldn’t stop hitting her or screaming at her. She killed my friends and then she killed the woman I loved.”
Ryan took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. He had been right when he said that the two of them looked like they had been through hell. He couldn’t even imagine but the last few years had been like for the two of them. At least this explained a lot of what he saw in their eyes when he looked closely.
With the exception of Lester, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room, but even he looked a little less stoic than he usually did. “What happened next, Connor?”
“I don’t know how long it was before I left Helen’s body and made the climb back up to where Abby had fallen. I just knew I had to get to her and that I had to protect her from the predators. I had failed to protect her in life, but I wasn’t going to let some creature make a meal out of her.”
“Oh god, mate,” Stephen said, shaking his head as he tried to find his voice.
“But she wasn’t dead,” Lester prompted.
Sid’s gaze had looked like he was focused on something far away, but Lester’s comment brought him back to his current surroundings. He looked down to where Nancy’s eyes were looking up at him.
“No,” he nodded. “She wasn’t dead, but for a few moments when I got back to her, I really thought she was. There was blood everywhere - all over her face and her hair and neck. I was able to find a very faint pulse and that’s when I knew that I had to do everything I could in order to keep that pulse going.” He took a shuddering breath and only Nancy squeezing his hand kept him from falling apart again. “I got the bleeding stopped and got her cleaned up as best as I could. I couldn’t find the exit wound for the bullet, though. I looked everywhere, but I never found one. I got her cleaned up and wrapped up in the blankets we had and settled her onto the cot that Helen had in the cave. I kept a fire going and I made sure to get what fluids into her that I could. I was so scared that nothing I did was going to be enough and I was still going to lose her.”
“But you didn’t lose me,” Nancy murmured. “You kept me alive.”
“Even when you stopped breathing on me, I managed to get your breathing going again and your heart beating.”
“I told you that it was just a really bad graze.”
“It was not and you very well know it.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “When are you going to learn that it does no good for you to try to pretend with me.”
“Connor … Sid,” Stephen said quietly, his hand holding onto his Abby. “You said that she’s dying and that after Helen shot her, you couldn’t find an exit wound from the bullet. But there was a definite entrance wound?” Sid nodded. Stephen swallowed, really not sure if he wanted the answer to this next question. “Where was Abby hit?”
“In the head.”
Six || Eight
Author: not_from_stars
Artist(s): skylar0grace
Media Link: Art Here
Word Count: 24,395
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Connor Temple, Stephen Hart/Abby Maitland
Summary: Having worked for the Anomaly Research Center for a few years, Nick, Stephen, Tom, Abby, Connor and Claudia thought they had seen everything. But when an incursion turns out to be people instead of rampaging animals, that's not the only shock they get. Abby and Stephen are the first on the scene when Abby and Connor come through the anomaly. Abby and Connor are from a time line where some things have gone horrible wrong. Now, not only do they have to convince this time line's version of their friends what has happened, they need to find their way back to their own home and time line. Back in their world, Becker, Danny, Sarah and Jenny are working frantically to find a way to locate their friends and bring them home. Armed with two years of notes and several journals, they're doing their best to open an anomaly and get their loved ones back because they know something that the other time line doesn't. They're running out of time.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is a complete AU and there should be no spoilers for anything.
Author’s Notes: I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. skylar0grace made me lots of awesome art to accompany this fic and I can't thank her enough for everything she did for me!
Sarah sighed as she stretched her back before getting up from the table. She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting, but it was long enough for her neck to start protesting against her. She shook her head as she walked from the office down to the break room. Hopefully there was still coffee left because she really didn’t feel like waiting for a new pot to brew. She had work to get back to.
She couldn’t explain it, but she knew she was near a breakthrough on the puzzle that was the whereabouts of Connor and Abby. She could just feel that she was close - and this wasn’t a feeling she had experienced in all of the time they had been gone. She hadn’t said anything to the others because she didn’t know exactly what the breakthrough was going to be or how. With her friends in this situation, she knew that she needed to have precise details before she could tell them anything.
She entered the break room and gave the other occupant a surprised smile. “Jess? I didn’t expect to see you in here so late.”
“So early, you mean?” The redhead returned the smile. “Sarah, it’s six in the morning. Have you been here all night?” Before Sarah could answer her, Jess shook her head. “Never mind, that’s a stupid question. The lot of you have been working around the clock lately.” She bit her lip and then looked at Sarah calmly. “Has it done any good?”
Sarah was silent for a moment as she looked at Jess. Most of the others at the ARC had made remarks about them just needing to forget the missing people and get on with their lives. Jess and her boyfriend, Matt, the leader of the other team, had never said anything of the kind that Sarah could recall.
“I believe that I’m close to a solution, Jess,” she said finally. “I know that there is just one piece of the puzzle I haven’t put together, yet, and that it’s in front of me. I’m just not seeing it, yet.”
She nodded, handing Sarah a cup of coffee. “Is this the first time you’ve felt this confident about it?”
“Yeah, it is. I’ve always known that we would find them, but I haven’t ever felt this close to it until now.”
“Maybe we’re the solution,” Jess mused thoughtfully.
Sarah jerked her head up in surprise and stared at Jess. “I - what?”
Jess gave her a sympathetic smile as she went around Sarah and closed the door to the break room. “Maybe Matt and I are the key to your solution in finding them - I only wish I had thought of it earlier, because it makes so much bloody sense.” She pulled out a mobile phone and dialed a number.
Sarah continued to stare at the other woman mutely for a few moments and finally found her voice again. “Jess?” There were so many complicated questions in that one word.
“I promise, you’ll understand, soon,” Jess said before she spoke into the phone. “Matt? Are you busy right now? No? Oh good. Could you please come directly to Dr. Sarah Page’s office when you get here? I think I’ve figured part of it out. I know, but this feels right and we already know that we can trust her group - look how much time they’ve spent trying to find them already.” Jess nodded. “I know, their offices aren’t wired, I made sure of that when everything else was getting set up. All right, I’ll see you soon. Love you, too.”
Jess put away her phone and looked at Sarah with a bright smile. “Let’s go to your office where we can have privacy. Matt will be joining us there shortly.”
Bemused, Sarah followed the other woman out of the break room and down the hall to her office. She sat down in her chair, curling her hands around the coffee cup. She was beginning to get the feeling that no amount of coffee was going to be enough for what Jess and Matt were going to tell her.
And what did any of them know about the pair, anyway? They knew they had been hired as part of a secondary team so that the primary team could focus on finding Connor, Abby, and Helen. Lester had told them that the two came highly recommended, but he never said who had recommended them to him. They were certainly good at their jobs - Matt with firearms and military knowledge and Jess with all of her knowledge of communications and computers. However, other than that, their team didn’t know very much about them.
Which, Sarah reasoned, was understandable since all of their attention had been focused on their friends and not so much on the everyday running of the ARC since it was obvious it was in capable hands. Once they had known that the other team was capable of handling most things that came up, their group hadn’t felt bad about turning all of their attention on a rescue mission.
When there was a knock on the door, Jess let Matt in and then locked the door behind him. The two of them sat on chairs across from Sarah and Matt gave her a faint smile.
“I bet you’re confused and wondering if you’ll need to shoot us with that gun Becker makes you keep with you at all times,” Matt said gently. When Sarah’s eyebrow lifted, he laugh softly. “Don’t look so surprised. I would expect him to do that with you all after losing your two friends. Hell, I’ve made Jess carry a weapon of some kind for years.”
Jess nodded. “With the things all of us do, it only makes sense.”
Sarah was staring at Jess in puzzlement. The calm and cool woman sitting across from her was a far cry from the cheerful and bubbly woman she was used to seeing.
“I am very confused,” she finally admitted.
Matt looked at Jess who smiled and then he looked back at Sarah. “Jess and I are from the future.”
The shocked silence that fell over the room after Sid’s announcement lasted long enough for Nancy to show signs of getting antsy. Ryan shook his head a moment and then looked at Connor to gauge the younger man’s reaction to what he was hearing.
“I killed Helen?” There was a lot of shock and confusion in that comment. “I’ve never killed anyone.”
“I had a damn good reason,” Sid’s voice had turned cold, surprising every one even further.
Nancy leaned into him, one hand moving up to caress his face. “It’s all right, love. It’s all right. You don’t have to explain anything to them. They weren’t there. They have no idea what you went through.”
“Or you,” he corrected, closing his eyes for a moment and leaning into her touch. “I thought you were dead and that I had lost you.”
“But you didn’t. You won’t ever lose me, Connor.”
“It was a very near thing, Abby. It was a very near thing and I thought you were gone.” He swallowed. “It’s still not better and I know you’re in more pain than usual.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m here, with you, and everything will be all right.”
Ryan frowned and looked at Cutter and then Stephen. He didn’t like was he was assuming just from their cryptic conversation. He could tell that his two friends didn’t much like it, either. From what he was deducing, Helen must have done something to Abby that caused Connor to come unglued and attack her. In the attack, Helen was killed.
Cutter moved to kneel down next to the couch so he could look at the two people there.
“Connor, you need to tell us what happened in your world. I know that I’ve taught you a great deal about not corrupting time lines or fossil records, but if we’re in danger, we need to know all of the details that you can provide.” His voice was soothing, like he would use when dealing with a wild creature.
“Why, so you guys can lock us up again?” Nancy’s voice was more resigned than bitter. She was just so tired of this. Tired of not being home, tired of not knowing what was going to happen to her and Connor. She was tired of trying to be so strong day after day while her hope was diminishing. “You’re not taking him away. He had good reason to do what he did and any of you would have done the same damn thing.”
“No.” It was Abby who spoke, watching the other woman’s eyes. “I promise you, Abby, no one is going to lock either one of you up again. And no one is going to take Connor away from you. They’d have to go through me, first.”
“Through all of us,” Connor volunteered. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you while you’re here. And we’ll figure out how to get you back home. I don’t know how, but we will.”
“You can’t help us find the right anomaly to get home,” Sid said wearily as he opened his eyes to look at Cutter. “All you can do is take us to the next one that opens and let us go. We’ll go back to traveling through anomalies until we find the one that opens back into our own time.”
“And how long do you think that will take,” Stephen asked as calmly as he could manage it. “The two of you have been doing this for two years and you’re barely alive. How much longer do you think your bodies will keep up with your will?”
“I don’t know but we can’t just stay here and do nothing,” Sid said. “I promised Abby that I would get her back home before…” He clenched his jaw and looked away from them.
That didn’t bode well.
“Before what, Connor?” Ryan asked, stepping closer. “What promise did you make to Abby?”
“Don’t.” Nancy’s voice was pleading. “Don’t do this to him. You have no right to question him like this.”
“I’m sorry, Abby, but we do have the right,” Claudia said gently. “The two of you are from another time and we can see that you’re not in good condition. We found you, and it’s our responsibility to look after you and take care of you until you can get back to your own time.” Claudia looked into the other woman’s eyes and reached to squeeze her hand. “In this time, you’re one of my closest friends, Abby. I won’t let anyone hurt you or hurt Connor if I can do anything to prevent it.”
“You’re so much like Jenny,” Nancy said after a moment. “So determined, silk wrapped around a core of steel.” She lay her head back against Sid.
“Talk to us, Connor,” Cutter urged. “What did you promise Abby? You have to tell us so that we can help you keep that promise.”
“You can’t help me,” Sid said wearily. “Not with this.”
“How will you know unless you give us the chance?” Abby’s voice shook with emotion. She didn’t like seeing this other version of herself so resigned and hopeless and she really didn’t like seeing this other version of Connor so broken inside.
“Because I promised Abby that I would get her home before she died.” Sid snapped impatiently. Then he sighed, tears filling his eyes as he looked down at Nancy. “Abby’s dying and I promised her that I would get her home before that happened.”
Cutter rocked back on his heels when he heard that. He stared at the two on the sofa and then swallowed, looking at his friends. Stephen had gone pale - as had Connor. Abby had both of her hands over her mouth, and Claudia’s eyes were suspiciously bright. She could see Ryan struggling to keep his calm demeanor, but Cutter didn’t think he was going to be able to. Not with this. Not at the news that the woman in front of them that looked so much like their own friend was dying.
Surprisingly, it was Lester’s cool voice that broke the silence. “What’s wrong with Abby that you think she’s dying?” He asked calmly. “Does her condition have anything to do with why you killed Helen Cutter?”
“It has everything to do with it,” Sid said quietly, his arms tightening protectively around Nancy. “For over a year, Helen used Abby’s safety and well-being as a way to control me and get me to work with her and do what she wanted me to do. She’d hold a gun on Abby or hit her with it and I couldn’t do anything because she always threatened to kill her.”
“I got tired of it,” Nancy murmured. “I was tired of being used as a way to torture him. I would have rather been dead than let her continue to scare him and use my life as a controlling factor. She had already taken so much from us - from him. If she hadn’t grabbed me, he never would have been trapped with her. One day, she wanted Connor to work on the device she had again to make it work faster. She was holding the gun on me as she started bossing him around. She jabbed me with the gun and I just… I lost it.”
“She fought with Helen, telling me to run and get away. I couldn’t leave her. I knew what she was doing was for me, but I just couldn’t leave her behind.” He swallowed. “Helen shot her. I heard the shot and I saw Abby fall. I don’t know what I was planning to do before that, but when I saw Abby fall, I went crazy for a little bit. I attacked Helen, trying to get the gun away from her. We were on the edge of a cliff and during the fight, we went over it. I managed to get the gun and I hit her in the head with it.” He swallowed. “Several times, I think. All I could see was that she had killed Abby and I couldn’t stop hitting her or screaming at her. She killed my friends and then she killed the woman I loved.”
Ryan took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. He had been right when he said that the two of them looked like they had been through hell. He couldn’t even imagine but the last few years had been like for the two of them. At least this explained a lot of what he saw in their eyes when he looked closely.
With the exception of Lester, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room, but even he looked a little less stoic than he usually did. “What happened next, Connor?”
“I don’t know how long it was before I left Helen’s body and made the climb back up to where Abby had fallen. I just knew I had to get to her and that I had to protect her from the predators. I had failed to protect her in life, but I wasn’t going to let some creature make a meal out of her.”
“Oh god, mate,” Stephen said, shaking his head as he tried to find his voice.
“But she wasn’t dead,” Lester prompted.
Sid’s gaze had looked like he was focused on something far away, but Lester’s comment brought him back to his current surroundings. He looked down to where Nancy’s eyes were looking up at him.
“No,” he nodded. “She wasn’t dead, but for a few moments when I got back to her, I really thought she was. There was blood everywhere - all over her face and her hair and neck. I was able to find a very faint pulse and that’s when I knew that I had to do everything I could in order to keep that pulse going.” He took a shuddering breath and only Nancy squeezing his hand kept him from falling apart again. “I got the bleeding stopped and got her cleaned up as best as I could. I couldn’t find the exit wound for the bullet, though. I looked everywhere, but I never found one. I got her cleaned up and wrapped up in the blankets we had and settled her onto the cot that Helen had in the cave. I kept a fire going and I made sure to get what fluids into her that I could. I was so scared that nothing I did was going to be enough and I was still going to lose her.”
“But you didn’t lose me,” Nancy murmured. “You kept me alive.”
“Even when you stopped breathing on me, I managed to get your breathing going again and your heart beating.”
“I told you that it was just a really bad graze.”
“It was not and you very well know it.” He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “When are you going to learn that it does no good for you to try to pretend with me.”
“Connor … Sid,” Stephen said quietly, his hand holding onto his Abby. “You said that she’s dying and that after Helen shot her, you couldn’t find an exit wound from the bullet. But there was a definite entrance wound?” Sid nodded. Stephen swallowed, really not sure if he wanted the answer to this next question. “Where was Abby hit?”
“In the head.”
Six || Eight