Time Entangled (8/9)
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 took a drink of her coffee as she thought about their words. There was nothing in their demeanor or in their eyes that said they were lying to her, but then again, she hadn’t expected Eve to turn into Helen, either.
“I can’t say that’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen or heard,” she finally allowed. “After all, people and animals come in from the past all of the time and we know people have used these anomalies to travel into the future.” She eyed them carefully. “Where in the future do you come from?”
“A particularly unpleasant one,” Jess responded. “We’re from a future that isn’t very habitable and it’s a place that we wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
“And you came back here to what, to fix it?”
“Actually, yes,” Matt answered her. “But now, I can see we were going about it all wrong. We’ve been looking for the person who caused the future to happen and stop them. However, Jess has a pretty good theory that changes everything I thought about this.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them. “And this somehow involves helping us find Connor and Abby?”
“It does,” Matt said with a nod. “See, in our world, our scientists believe that what’s happened to the world is because of what someone did in this time to mess with anomalies and use them to poison everything in an attempt to seize power. However, that hunger for power ended up backfiring and the earth is pretty much a dead zone for anyone living on the surface of the planet.”
“Most of Earth’s survivors were forced to go underground,” Jess explained. “It’s the only place that we can survive - and sometimes that’s tenuous at best. The air on the surface is just too toxic for anyone to survive breathing it for an extended period of time. The only creatures that seem to be able to handle it are those damned predator things and the large Megopteran bug things.”
Sarah had had more than one altercation with both of those creatures and gave Jess a look of distaste before setting her cup down in front of her.
“So what was your plan? Come back here and spy on the people in the ARC and kill the person responsible for destroying your world?” Well, it was something that would occur to her.
“Something like that,” Matt admitted. “See, we work at the ARC in our future and it seemed that the best thing to do was come back here and destroy the person responsible for the destruction of our future in hopes that it would never happen.” He let out a sigh. “It was my father’s idea and it seemed like a very good plan no matter how crazy it might sound at first blush. He had worked for the ARC most of his life, so when he laid out the plan, no one thought about anything else.”
“Let me guess,” Sarah mused. “Your father would be one Danny Quinn.”
Matt stared at her in surprised and Jess covered her mouth with her hand to hide a grin. “How did you know?”
“Crazy plan. That always means that Danny Quinn is involved in it somehow.” Sarah said with a small shake of her head. “It’s how the world works.” She looked back at the two of them. “You said that was the original plan, which means that for some reason, you think you need to rethink the plans the two of you have been trying to carry out for the last two years.”
“We came back here to find and take out the person who destroys the future,” Jess explained. “But I don’t think that’s why everything went to hell. I think the reason the future is like what we’ve seen is because the person or people that could have prevented it weren’t there when they needed.”
“Abby and Connor,” Sarah breathed.
Jess nodded. “Abby and Connor.”
“In our future, only Dad, you and Jenny are still with the ARC. Becker resigned from the team and was later killed in military combat. Lester was killed in an automobile accident, which is why Jenny ended up running the ARC five years ago. Well, five years ago in our time.”
Sarah couldn’t stop the swell of sorrow that she felt at Matt’s words. “Becker’s dead? And Lester, too?”
Jess nodded slightly. “The belief is that Becker couldn’t handle being here after it was decided that Abby and Connor were dead and that there was no hope in finding them alive after all of that time. Something broke in him and he had to leave. He picked up and moved away.”
“There was a memorial for the two of them next to the ones of Professor Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart. After Becker was killed, there was one put up for him, as well.” Matt let out a breath. “By the time Lester was killed, all of us had been forced underground.”
Sarah rubbed her temples with her fingers and fought down the grief over what she was hearing. That hadn’t happened yet, and it damn well wasn’t going to. “So, we have to find Connor and Abby so that they’re in place to stop the ending of the world.”
Matt nodded. “Pretty much it, yes.”
“It’s not like we weren’t under extra pressure before when we found out from Connor’s journals that Abby is dying.” Sarah sighed.
Jess and Matt stiffened across from her.
“What do you mean?” Matt demanded. “Abby can’t be dying.”
Sarah dropped her hands to the table. “We’re doing our best to prevent it,” she explained. “There was an entry in one of Connor’s journals that we found on one of our searches. It stated that Helen shot Abby and that Connor thinks the bullet is still in her head. At the time this happened, they were in the Pleistocene. We don’t know where they are now.”
“God damn it,” Matt cursed. “We have got to find them and get her taken care of. If she dies, both Connor and Becker will break and the world will end.”
“No pressure there,” Jess said quietly.
There was a sudden flurry of activity in the flat.
“What?” Ryan demanded, crouching next to the sofa to examine Nancy -- who tried to cringe away from him. “Why didn’t you tell us she was shot, damn it? Where does it hurt, Abby?”
Sid growled, squeezing Ryan’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip and pushing him away. “Back off.”
“Ryan,” Stephen warned, having seen the sudden darkening of Sid’s eyes. It was almost like he had appeared right before he attacked the security team. “Connor, no one here is going to hurt Abby. You have to know that. All we want to do is help.” At least he understood now what the look he kept seeing in Sid’s eyes. It was the smallest spark of insanity caused by everything they had gone through - and watching the woman he loved so fiercely dying before him.
“If you truly want to help us, then take us back to where you found us so we can go back through the anomaly and find our way home.”
“You can’t really just expect us to send you back through that thing when Abby is injured,” Ryan said in disbelief. “Let us get her to the A&E and taken care of before the two of you do anything rash.”
That hadn’t been Ryan’s first choice of words, but he didn’t think that calling their plans stupid wouldn’t do any of them any good. It most certainly wouldn’t get the two alternate versions of his friends to cooperate with them.
“There isn’t time!” Nancy said, her eyes going slightly out of focus for a moment. “Connor’s device only works within forty-eight hours of the anomaly closing!”
Cutter looked at her closely and he wondered how he had missed the fact that she was in such obvious physical pain. The scientist had overridden the human being in him and it was a realization that he wasn’t proud of. Taking the time now, he could see the strain in her eyes and in the way she held herself. She pretended to relax against Sid, but now he could see that even that was an act - probably cultivated very carefully to ease Sid’s guilt and worry. Inspecting her at this close distance, he could see the unnatural grayness of her skin beneath the tan and the grime of their ordeal through time.
“How have you managed to do it?” Cutter asked her, his voice gentle. “It has got to be excruciating by now. When did it happen?”
“Managed to do what?” Claudia asked from where she was watching Cutter inspect Nancy.
“Function through the pain and the fact that her body is starting to shut down on her,” Cutter said before the woman in question could answer. “The slightest move has got to be a struggle for her and she’s in constant pain that is getting increasingly worse.”
The look that Nancy gave Cutter for revealing her condition was decidedly unfriendly. “Two months,” she said in a carefully even voice, trying to downplay both her condition and the situation.
“Six,” Sid murmured, looking at her face. “She was shot approximately six months ago if the time in my journals has been recorded correctly.”
“How long have you been in this condition, Abby?” Stephen asked as his arms tightened around his own Abby.
Nancy looked away from them.
“Love?” Sid questioned.
Nancy sighed and closed her eyes. “A few weeks,” she finally responded. “Maybe more.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, her hand running through his hair. “To what end, Conn? To make your guilt over what happened even worse? To scare you or make you worry even more when you were already eating yourself up with it. Telling you my condition wasn’t going to speed up things and there was no point in adding that to your shoulders when you’re already carrying so much.”
“But I love you and I need to know these things, Abby,” Sid said quietly. “It’s my job to take care of you.”
“We take care of each other, yeah?” She managed a smile for him. “It’s how we’ve survived everything this far.”
Claudia didn’t like the note she could hear creeping into Nancy’s voice. She sounded like now that she was here, she was resigned to whatever fate she had been expecting. She really didn’t like the fact that this version of her friend was now giving up on her fight to live. She looked from Nancy to her friend and saw that she had gone pale. She shook her head at Abby and saw the understanding dawn in her eyes.
This was not happening.
Claudia elbowed Ryan gently, looking to Lester before looking back at the soldier.
“Don’t even attempt it, Captain Ryan,” Lester said calmly. “That nature of the ARC is to return creatures to their own time whenever possible. The guidelines don’t differentiate between animals and humans.” He raised an eyebrow at Claudia. “Really, Ms. Brown? You’ve worked alongside me for all of these years and you didn’t think I’d realize what you would be planning as soon as you heard that this other version of your best girlfriend is dying? Really. You give me far too little credit.”
Cutter hid a smile as he turned back to the two people on the sofa. “We really should take you to an A&E and get you checked out.”
“There isn’t time,” she whispered, trying to sit up and look around at everyone. “We may have already missed the opportunity to re-open the anomaly, but if you take me to the A&E or any place but the forest, then we really will be trapped here.” She looked into his eyes. “Please, Cutter. Don’t make us fight you.”
Stephen made a choked noise, which caused Abby to glare at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Only that she sounds so much like you, love,” Stephen soothed her, pulling her close to him again. “She’s barely alive, barely able to sit up on her own and she’s still willing to try fighting her way out of this.” He kissed the top of her head. “Just like you would try to.”
“My son.”
“Right.”
“From the future.”
“Right.”
“From a future where my best friends and boss are dead and the world is a bad film come to life.”
“Right.”
“There is not enough beer in any pub to deal with news like this so early in the day.”
Sarah let out a sigh of relief as she leaned back in her chair. The meeting between her team and Jess and Matt had gone a lot better than she had anticipated. While Becker and Jenny were still a little pale from the shock of the news about the future, Danny was approaching this with his usual aplomb.
Aplomb which would probably crumple as soon as this was all over and he could find his way to the nearest pub. They would all probably be doing that when they got Connor and Abby safely home.
Considering everything they had already seen and dealt with since working with the people of the ARC, Sarah wasn’t surprised that the news that two of their co-workers were from the future didn’t really startle anyone. The only surprise was that there was a future where people still lived since on their trips, all they had seen were carnivorous predators.
Then again, their minds were all so focused on rescuing their friends that she didn’t think anything would derail their minds right now. Which was a very good thing to her way of looking at it.
Of course, they would later have a nice discussion about the ramifications of Matt being Danny’s son from the future and how that future might change after they rescued Connor and Abby.
“So who were you originally here to kill?” Jenny finally asked the question that no one else had, yet. The fact that Matt was there to kill someone, she could believe. It was harder for her to wrap her mind around Jess being here to kill someone. Jess didn’t seem the sort.
“We weren’t exactly sure who our target was to be honest. It was one of those things that we needed to find out after we arrived here,” Jess replied with cool efficiency. She obviously knew what Jenny was thinking. “Originally Danny thought that somehow Helen was behind it and that she had showed up even after you lost Connor and Abby.”
Becker shook his head. “We would never have given up on them, I don’t care what happened.”
“After five years, the Minister had them declared legally dead after an investigation deduced that there was no way they could have survived for all of that time in the past - or wherever they had been taken to after they were kidnapped from this time,” Jess explained. “If Helen hadn’t murdered them, then something else would have killed them because they weren’t equipped to survive for any length of time in a prehistoric environment.”
“Nobody was pleased with the decision, but when threatened with the closure of the ARC, none of you had any choice but to abide by the ruling,” Matt continued. “It just about broke all of you, but in the end, you agreed that the continued operation of the ARC was more important than fighting the Minister and the military to reverse his decision.”
“Only I didn’t stay for the continuing operations.” Becker’s voice was thick with self-loathing as he leaned his head back against the wall. “I walked away.”
“Dad said that you tried to stick it out for about a year afterward, but your heart was no longer really in it. You were scary efficient, but it just wasn’t the same you.”
Becker didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes as he tried to process the idea that he had turned his back on all of his friends and left them when they needed him.
“You loved them so much, Becker,” Jess said quietly. “Losing them broke your heart and you just didn’t have it in you to stay here when there were so many memories and so much pain for you.”
“You would have come back, though,” Matt added. “You told Dad that if he ever needed you, truly needed you, you would come back and help him. You just never got the chance to make good on that because you were killed in combat not more than a year later.”
Becker just shook his head and sighed. “That doesn’t excuse me abandoning my friends and the job I was commissioned to do.”
“No one held it against you, mate,” Matt pointed out. “Dad, Jenny, Sarah and Lester lost friends and people they cared about, yes. But you lost the two people you had been in love with. With both of them gone, it just didn’t matter to you what happened. You didn’t care if you got hurt or not. You just wanted the pain to go away and you wanted to be with them.”
“Look,” Danny said brusquely. “No offense, but none of that has happened and it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to stand by and let four people I care about die; not on my watch.”
Jess laughed, shaking her head. "He really does sound like Dad."
Everyone looked startled as they glanced from Jess to Matt.
"Dad?" Sarah asked. She had thought that Jess and Matt were dating. Had that been part of the cover story, too?
Matt shook his head. "We're married. Dad didn't like being called Mr. Quinn by his future daughter in law, so he told her to call him Dad."
"Well, with the world going all to hell, I can't help being glad that at least my son retained good taste," Danny quipped.
Jenny shook her head. "As amusing as that all is, we have a problem. Several, actually. According to Connor's journal, Abby is dying. According to Jess and Matt, the future is dying."
Becker let out a sound of frustration. "We're right back at where we started with running out of time and having no bloody idea how to rescue them and get Abby to medical care."
"That's not precisely true, Becker," Matt pointed out. "You have Jess and I now."
"And what exactly are you going to do that we haven't been able to do?"
"We're going to go and get them."
“Of course we are,” Danny said sarcastically. “Now why didn’t we think of that?” He looked at Becker. “Captain Becker, you’re the military field commander! Why didn’t you just go and get them when they disappeared? After all, it’s not like they haven’t been lost and alone in dangerous places for over two years or anything.”
Jenny winced. She could understand the frustration that was fueling Danny’s outburst. The four of them had tried over and over to get to the place where Abby and Connor had last been seen. To be disappointed and scared so many times took a toll on all of them. Every time they had a glimmer of hope about bringing their friends home, something went wrong or their calculations were off.
Or the damn anomalies just didn’t cooperate and open up to the correct time.
“There’s a difference now,” Jess said, apparently undisturbed by Danny’s outburst. “Now, you have us.”
“Oh, of course.”
Seven || Nine
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 took a drink of her coffee as she thought about their words. There was nothing in their demeanor or in their eyes that said they were lying to her, but then again, she hadn’t expected Eve to turn into Helen, either.
“I can’t say that’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen or heard,” she finally allowed. “After all, people and animals come in from the past all of the time and we know people have used these anomalies to travel into the future.” She eyed them carefully. “Where in the future do you come from?”
“A particularly unpleasant one,” Jess responded. “We’re from a future that isn’t very habitable and it’s a place that we wouldn’t wish on anyone.”
“And you came back here to what, to fix it?”
“Actually, yes,” Matt answered her. “But now, I can see we were going about it all wrong. We’ve been looking for the person who caused the future to happen and stop them. However, Jess has a pretty good theory that changes everything I thought about this.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them. “And this somehow involves helping us find Connor and Abby?”
“It does,” Matt said with a nod. “See, in our world, our scientists believe that what’s happened to the world is because of what someone did in this time to mess with anomalies and use them to poison everything in an attempt to seize power. However, that hunger for power ended up backfiring and the earth is pretty much a dead zone for anyone living on the surface of the planet.”
“Most of Earth’s survivors were forced to go underground,” Jess explained. “It’s the only place that we can survive - and sometimes that’s tenuous at best. The air on the surface is just too toxic for anyone to survive breathing it for an extended period of time. The only creatures that seem to be able to handle it are those damned predator things and the large Megopteran bug things.”
Sarah had had more than one altercation with both of those creatures and gave Jess a look of distaste before setting her cup down in front of her.
“So what was your plan? Come back here and spy on the people in the ARC and kill the person responsible for destroying your world?” Well, it was something that would occur to her.
“Something like that,” Matt admitted. “See, we work at the ARC in our future and it seemed that the best thing to do was come back here and destroy the person responsible for the destruction of our future in hopes that it would never happen.” He let out a sigh. “It was my father’s idea and it seemed like a very good plan no matter how crazy it might sound at first blush. He had worked for the ARC most of his life, so when he laid out the plan, no one thought about anything else.”
“Let me guess,” Sarah mused. “Your father would be one Danny Quinn.”
Matt stared at her in surprised and Jess covered her mouth with her hand to hide a grin. “How did you know?”
“Crazy plan. That always means that Danny Quinn is involved in it somehow.” Sarah said with a small shake of her head. “It’s how the world works.” She looked back at the two of them. “You said that was the original plan, which means that for some reason, you think you need to rethink the plans the two of you have been trying to carry out for the last two years.”
“We came back here to find and take out the person who destroys the future,” Jess explained. “But I don’t think that’s why everything went to hell. I think the reason the future is like what we’ve seen is because the person or people that could have prevented it weren’t there when they needed.”
“Abby and Connor,” Sarah breathed.
Jess nodded. “Abby and Connor.”
“In our future, only Dad, you and Jenny are still with the ARC. Becker resigned from the team and was later killed in military combat. Lester was killed in an automobile accident, which is why Jenny ended up running the ARC five years ago. Well, five years ago in our time.”
Sarah couldn’t stop the swell of sorrow that she felt at Matt’s words. “Becker’s dead? And Lester, too?”
Jess nodded slightly. “The belief is that Becker couldn’t handle being here after it was decided that Abby and Connor were dead and that there was no hope in finding them alive after all of that time. Something broke in him and he had to leave. He picked up and moved away.”
“There was a memorial for the two of them next to the ones of Professor Nick Cutter and Stephen Hart. After Becker was killed, there was one put up for him, as well.” Matt let out a breath. “By the time Lester was killed, all of us had been forced underground.”
Sarah rubbed her temples with her fingers and fought down the grief over what she was hearing. That hadn’t happened yet, and it damn well wasn’t going to. “So, we have to find Connor and Abby so that they’re in place to stop the ending of the world.”
Matt nodded. “Pretty much it, yes.”
“It’s not like we weren’t under extra pressure before when we found out from Connor’s journals that Abby is dying.” Sarah sighed.
Jess and Matt stiffened across from her.
“What do you mean?” Matt demanded. “Abby can’t be dying.”
Sarah dropped her hands to the table. “We’re doing our best to prevent it,” she explained. “There was an entry in one of Connor’s journals that we found on one of our searches. It stated that Helen shot Abby and that Connor thinks the bullet is still in her head. At the time this happened, they were in the Pleistocene. We don’t know where they are now.”
“God damn it,” Matt cursed. “We have got to find them and get her taken care of. If she dies, both Connor and Becker will break and the world will end.”
“No pressure there,” Jess said quietly.
There was a sudden flurry of activity in the flat.
“What?” Ryan demanded, crouching next to the sofa to examine Nancy -- who tried to cringe away from him. “Why didn’t you tell us she was shot, damn it? Where does it hurt, Abby?”
Sid growled, squeezing Ryan’s hand in a surprisingly strong grip and pushing him away. “Back off.”
“Ryan,” Stephen warned, having seen the sudden darkening of Sid’s eyes. It was almost like he had appeared right before he attacked the security team. “Connor, no one here is going to hurt Abby. You have to know that. All we want to do is help.” At least he understood now what the look he kept seeing in Sid’s eyes. It was the smallest spark of insanity caused by everything they had gone through - and watching the woman he loved so fiercely dying before him.
“If you truly want to help us, then take us back to where you found us so we can go back through the anomaly and find our way home.”
“You can’t really just expect us to send you back through that thing when Abby is injured,” Ryan said in disbelief. “Let us get her to the A&E and taken care of before the two of you do anything rash.”
That hadn’t been Ryan’s first choice of words, but he didn’t think that calling their plans stupid wouldn’t do any of them any good. It most certainly wouldn’t get the two alternate versions of his friends to cooperate with them.
“There isn’t time!” Nancy said, her eyes going slightly out of focus for a moment. “Connor’s device only works within forty-eight hours of the anomaly closing!”
Cutter looked at her closely and he wondered how he had missed the fact that she was in such obvious physical pain. The scientist had overridden the human being in him and it was a realization that he wasn’t proud of. Taking the time now, he could see the strain in her eyes and in the way she held herself. She pretended to relax against Sid, but now he could see that even that was an act - probably cultivated very carefully to ease Sid’s guilt and worry. Inspecting her at this close distance, he could see the unnatural grayness of her skin beneath the tan and the grime of their ordeal through time.
“How have you managed to do it?” Cutter asked her, his voice gentle. “It has got to be excruciating by now. When did it happen?”
“Managed to do what?” Claudia asked from where she was watching Cutter inspect Nancy.
“Function through the pain and the fact that her body is starting to shut down on her,” Cutter said before the woman in question could answer. “The slightest move has got to be a struggle for her and she’s in constant pain that is getting increasingly worse.”
The look that Nancy gave Cutter for revealing her condition was decidedly unfriendly. “Two months,” she said in a carefully even voice, trying to downplay both her condition and the situation.
“Six,” Sid murmured, looking at her face. “She was shot approximately six months ago if the time in my journals has been recorded correctly.”
“How long have you been in this condition, Abby?” Stephen asked as his arms tightened around his own Abby.
Nancy looked away from them.
“Love?” Sid questioned.
Nancy sighed and closed her eyes. “A few weeks,” she finally responded. “Maybe more.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She opened her eyes and looked at him, her hand running through his hair. “To what end, Conn? To make your guilt over what happened even worse? To scare you or make you worry even more when you were already eating yourself up with it. Telling you my condition wasn’t going to speed up things and there was no point in adding that to your shoulders when you’re already carrying so much.”
“But I love you and I need to know these things, Abby,” Sid said quietly. “It’s my job to take care of you.”
“We take care of each other, yeah?” She managed a smile for him. “It’s how we’ve survived everything this far.”
Claudia didn’t like the note she could hear creeping into Nancy’s voice. She sounded like now that she was here, she was resigned to whatever fate she had been expecting. She really didn’t like the fact that this version of her friend was now giving up on her fight to live. She looked from Nancy to her friend and saw that she had gone pale. She shook her head at Abby and saw the understanding dawn in her eyes.
This was not happening.
Claudia elbowed Ryan gently, looking to Lester before looking back at the soldier.
“Don’t even attempt it, Captain Ryan,” Lester said calmly. “That nature of the ARC is to return creatures to their own time whenever possible. The guidelines don’t differentiate between animals and humans.” He raised an eyebrow at Claudia. “Really, Ms. Brown? You’ve worked alongside me for all of these years and you didn’t think I’d realize what you would be planning as soon as you heard that this other version of your best girlfriend is dying? Really. You give me far too little credit.”
Cutter hid a smile as he turned back to the two people on the sofa. “We really should take you to an A&E and get you checked out.”
“There isn’t time,” she whispered, trying to sit up and look around at everyone. “We may have already missed the opportunity to re-open the anomaly, but if you take me to the A&E or any place but the forest, then we really will be trapped here.” She looked into his eyes. “Please, Cutter. Don’t make us fight you.”
Stephen made a choked noise, which caused Abby to glare at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Only that she sounds so much like you, love,” Stephen soothed her, pulling her close to him again. “She’s barely alive, barely able to sit up on her own and she’s still willing to try fighting her way out of this.” He kissed the top of her head. “Just like you would try to.”
“My son.”
“Right.”
“From the future.”
“Right.”
“From a future where my best friends and boss are dead and the world is a bad film come to life.”
“Right.”
“There is not enough beer in any pub to deal with news like this so early in the day.”
Sarah let out a sigh of relief as she leaned back in her chair. The meeting between her team and Jess and Matt had gone a lot better than she had anticipated. While Becker and Jenny were still a little pale from the shock of the news about the future, Danny was approaching this with his usual aplomb.
Aplomb which would probably crumple as soon as this was all over and he could find his way to the nearest pub. They would all probably be doing that when they got Connor and Abby safely home.
Considering everything they had already seen and dealt with since working with the people of the ARC, Sarah wasn’t surprised that the news that two of their co-workers were from the future didn’t really startle anyone. The only surprise was that there was a future where people still lived since on their trips, all they had seen were carnivorous predators.
Then again, their minds were all so focused on rescuing their friends that she didn’t think anything would derail their minds right now. Which was a very good thing to her way of looking at it.
Of course, they would later have a nice discussion about the ramifications of Matt being Danny’s son from the future and how that future might change after they rescued Connor and Abby.
“So who were you originally here to kill?” Jenny finally asked the question that no one else had, yet. The fact that Matt was there to kill someone, she could believe. It was harder for her to wrap her mind around Jess being here to kill someone. Jess didn’t seem the sort.
“We weren’t exactly sure who our target was to be honest. It was one of those things that we needed to find out after we arrived here,” Jess replied with cool efficiency. She obviously knew what Jenny was thinking. “Originally Danny thought that somehow Helen was behind it and that she had showed up even after you lost Connor and Abby.”
Becker shook his head. “We would never have given up on them, I don’t care what happened.”
“After five years, the Minister had them declared legally dead after an investigation deduced that there was no way they could have survived for all of that time in the past - or wherever they had been taken to after they were kidnapped from this time,” Jess explained. “If Helen hadn’t murdered them, then something else would have killed them because they weren’t equipped to survive for any length of time in a prehistoric environment.”
“Nobody was pleased with the decision, but when threatened with the closure of the ARC, none of you had any choice but to abide by the ruling,” Matt continued. “It just about broke all of you, but in the end, you agreed that the continued operation of the ARC was more important than fighting the Minister and the military to reverse his decision.”
“Only I didn’t stay for the continuing operations.” Becker’s voice was thick with self-loathing as he leaned his head back against the wall. “I walked away.”
“Dad said that you tried to stick it out for about a year afterward, but your heart was no longer really in it. You were scary efficient, but it just wasn’t the same you.”
Becker didn’t say anything, just closed his eyes as he tried to process the idea that he had turned his back on all of his friends and left them when they needed him.
“You loved them so much, Becker,” Jess said quietly. “Losing them broke your heart and you just didn’t have it in you to stay here when there were so many memories and so much pain for you.”
“You would have come back, though,” Matt added. “You told Dad that if he ever needed you, truly needed you, you would come back and help him. You just never got the chance to make good on that because you were killed in combat not more than a year later.”
Becker just shook his head and sighed. “That doesn’t excuse me abandoning my friends and the job I was commissioned to do.”
“No one held it against you, mate,” Matt pointed out. “Dad, Jenny, Sarah and Lester lost friends and people they cared about, yes. But you lost the two people you had been in love with. With both of them gone, it just didn’t matter to you what happened. You didn’t care if you got hurt or not. You just wanted the pain to go away and you wanted to be with them.”
“Look,” Danny said brusquely. “No offense, but none of that has happened and it’s not going to happen. I’m not going to stand by and let four people I care about die; not on my watch.”
Jess laughed, shaking her head. "He really does sound like Dad."
Everyone looked startled as they glanced from Jess to Matt.
"Dad?" Sarah asked. She had thought that Jess and Matt were dating. Had that been part of the cover story, too?
Matt shook his head. "We're married. Dad didn't like being called Mr. Quinn by his future daughter in law, so he told her to call him Dad."
"Well, with the world going all to hell, I can't help being glad that at least my son retained good taste," Danny quipped.
Jenny shook her head. "As amusing as that all is, we have a problem. Several, actually. According to Connor's journal, Abby is dying. According to Jess and Matt, the future is dying."
Becker let out a sound of frustration. "We're right back at where we started with running out of time and having no bloody idea how to rescue them and get Abby to medical care."
"That's not precisely true, Becker," Matt pointed out. "You have Jess and I now."
"And what exactly are you going to do that we haven't been able to do?"
"We're going to go and get them."
“Of course we are,” Danny said sarcastically. “Now why didn’t we think of that?” He looked at Becker. “Captain Becker, you’re the military field commander! Why didn’t you just go and get them when they disappeared? After all, it’s not like they haven’t been lost and alone in dangerous places for over two years or anything.”
Jenny winced. She could understand the frustration that was fueling Danny’s outburst. The four of them had tried over and over to get to the place where Abby and Connor had last been seen. To be disappointed and scared so many times took a toll on all of them. Every time they had a glimmer of hope about bringing their friends home, something went wrong or their calculations were off.
Or the damn anomalies just didn’t cooperate and open up to the correct time.
“There’s a difference now,” Jess said, apparently undisturbed by Danny’s outburst. “Now, you have us.”
“Oh, of course.”
Seven || Nine