No Place Like Home-Connor/Abby Primeval Fic
Title: No Place Like Home
Author: pink_flame_87
Recipient: dominique012
Prompt #1: Japan, snow globe, lucky
Prompt#3: London, tourist, envy
Pairing(s): Abby/Connor
Rating: PG
Genre: Slight angst, romance
Summary: Abby wants to see the world. Connor wants to give it to her.
Disclaimer: Primeval does not belong to me, no copyright infringement intended
Written for the Spring 2010 primevalathon.
Abby Maitland was not like other girls. Most girls did not know there were roughly 3,800 species of lizards, did not spend their days chasing down doorways to other times, and definitely did not have prehistoric pets named Rex flying around their flats.
No, Abby was nothing like the girls who had terrified Connor at university, the ones who traveled in packs and seemed to split their time between ignoring him and staring at him as though he was something unpleasant they’d stepped in.
She was, however; every bit as confusing to Connor as those girls had been. Sometimes he found himself tallying up her behavior in his mind, attempting to figure out if they were friends or something more. She was the girl who had lent him a fiver for an after hours slushie, and let him convince her to watch a Sci-Fi movie at least once a month. She was also the girl who had fallen for Stephen, and kicked him out of the flat in favor of her less than trustworthy brother. She was the girl who hugged him, but didn’t kiss him, who hated the only girlfriend he’d ever brought round, but didn’t seem to want the position for herself, and currently she was the girl who was knee deep in one of the worst moods Connor had ever witnessed.
“Abby, are you sure I can’t help you?” Connor asked for probably the tenth time, ducking as more random objects were hurled in his general direction.
Abby, who was presently buried deep within her closet looking for something merely grunted in response and continued tossing things over her shoulder.
Connor managed to stay silent for roughly another five seconds before venturing, “So that’s a no then?”
“Argh, stop it Connor! I am more than capable of finding something in my own closet.” Abby snapped, continuing her violent method of searching.
“Right, yeah, you’ve clearly got things under control,” Connor stuttered, taken aback by the angry tone of Abby’s voice. “I’ll just sit here and keep you company then, shall I?” Connor finished in a falsely bright voice sitting on the edge of Abby’s bed.
“Got it!” Abby finally called, backing out of her closet clutching a box.
It looked nondescript enough, and Connor was just about to ask what was in it when Abby marched past him out of her room.
“Abby?” He called, chasing her down the hallway and towards the kitchen. “Where are you going?”
“To get rid of this,” Abby replied in a matter of fact tone as he caught up with her, just in time to see her dump the mysterious box unceremoniously into the rubbish bin.
“What are you doing?” Connor exclaimed, immediately reaching forward and retrieving the box before Abby could stop him. “You spent all that time looking for it just to throw it out?”
“Give it back, Connor!” Abby demanded making a leap for it until he raised it above his head and out of her reach.
“Just tell me what it is and why it upset you so much,” Connor insisted, completely baffled by her behavior. “I’m worried about you, Abby.”
All of the fight seemed to drain out of Abby as her shoulders slumped and she leaned back against the counter.
“It was a dream, Connor, and it’s never going to happen now so I don’t want it sitting around reminding me of that,” She explained quietly.
Connor was even more confused then he had been before, but he didn’t feel his usual urge to run away when something between him and Abby got a bit too strange or intense. Instead his only thought was to determine what had Abby looking so sad and figure out a way to make it better.
He crossed to stand beside her, leaning against the counter to her left. He put his hand on the lid of the offending box, and with a quick glance at her to make sure she wouldn’t stop him, he slowly opened it. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been a pile of maps and travel books.
He sifted through a few of the pamphlets under the maps, noting the bold print declaring “PARIS”, “TOKYO”, “NEW YORK”.
“Ah, now I see why you were so upset,” Connor said finally, attempting a lighthearted reply. “Holidays are very stressful.”
He was rewarded for his efforts with a tug at the edge of Abby’s lips that almost resembled a smile. Encouraged, he tried again.
“No, really,” Connor continued waving a pamphlet around for emphasis. “I once went on a holiday and came back so exhausted I had to take another week off just to recover.”
This time Abby’s smile was real and Connor was absolutely certain that cliché or not his heart had just skipped several beats.
“Connor…” She trailed off as the smile slid off of her face almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Ever since I was a kid I wanted to see the world. I’ve spent my whole life planning out all the places I’d go someday, and right before I got mixed up in all of this I’d decided I was finally going to go. I was going to start in Paris, be a proper tourist, and just see how far I could get, you know? But then all of this happened…and I don’t regret it, but what Lester said today it really got to me.”
Abby said all of this in a rush, and it took Connor a moment to catch up. “What did Lester say?”
“You know, he said ‘Don’t leave town this weekend’, just joking about how we can’t make it through two days without some disaster these days. But the thing is he’s right, and it just made realize this is it, Connor.”
Connor usually considered himself to be an incredibly smart person, but he wasn’t following Abby’s train of thought. “What’s it?”
“THIS,” She gestured around her as though whatever she was describing was really in the kitchen with them. “This life we live where we can’t make any plans because we know we’re probably going to get a call saying that a humongosaurus is rampaging around London.”
“Well, that’s unlikely,” Connor stated reasonably. “There’s no such thing as a humongosaurus.”
He was rewarded for his trouble with a glare from Abby.
“The point is Connor, this isn’t the kind of job you can just quit, or take a holiday when it becomes too much. Sometimes I envy people who can just take a break. We don’t have any idea what these anomalies are or how to stop them, and without Cutter…we’ll probably just keep doing this until something happens to us too.” Abby muttered, her gaze directed firmly at her hands, which were clutching the edge of the counter hard enough to turn them white.
“Abs…” Connor couldn’t fight the instinct that had him reaching out for Abby nor could he fight down the surge of disappointment as she shifted slightly away from his comforting reach.
“It’s fine, Connor,” She told him firmly, her tough outer shell firmly back in place. “Really, it’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s…fine. I’m just going to go out for a bit, ok?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just left Connor staring after her as she stopped briefly to grab a bag and her keys before exiting the flat as fast as possible. Connor was stunned. He glanced down at the box he still held in his hands and felt a sudden fierce longing that he was someone who could just whisk Abby away to see the world and take a break from all the terror and tragedy that seemed to have become a daily part of their lives.
If he was honest it didn’t sound half bad to him either. A slow smile made it’s away across his face as a spark of inspiration began to wriggle its way into his brain. He didn’t have a private jet at his disposal but he was clever, and maybe he could put together the next best thing.
Abby had been gone almost three hours before she finally felt like she had herself together enough to return to the flat. She normally prided herself on having the ability to keep her emotions in check at all times and the thought of letting Connor see her so vulnerable had been terrifying enough to send her fleeing, even if it wasn’t exactly fair to him. Connor was a great guy, if a little geeky and clueless, and he didn’t deserve to be stuck with someone who would rather tear her flat apart then just explain that she was feeling afraid.
Abby took a deep breath before inserting her key into the door of the flat, telling herself that she’d offer to watch whatever ridiculous film Connor wanted to watch to make up for her earlier erratic behavior. She pushed the door open slowly, revealing a surprisingly pitch black room.
“Connor?” She called cautiously, reaching out and groping blindly searching for the light switch.
Before she could flip the switch, the room was suddenly bathed in a beautiful barrage of images that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. The walls of the flat seemed to have given way to a cycling set of crystal clear images, transfixing her gaze with the Eiffel Tower, the New York skyline, and Mt. Fuji. Above them all, the ceiling sparkled with moving pinpricks of light forming rearranging constellations around the loft.
Abby gasped, her breath seeming to catch in her throat at the beauty she found herself unexpectedly surrounded by. She took a step towards the nearest wall, laying her palm flat against the current image, a beach scene so life like she swore she could almost feel the breeze coming off the sea.
“Do you like it?” Connor’s quiet question took her by surprise. She’d been so wrapped up in the beautiful display she hadn’t even heard his approach.
“It’s beautiful,” She whispered, palm sliding slowly from the wall as she turned to face him.
His quick grin made her heart stutter in her chest and she didn’t care in that moment what a cliché that line of thought was.
“There’s more,” He told her excitedly tapping a button on the device he held in his hand so that the lights came up just enough for them to see each other properly but not enough to disturb the images still being projected onto the walls.
He darted across the room returning with an armful of DVDs which he quickly thrust into her hands.
“Japan’s finest Anime and gangster films from the collection of yours truly, yatta!” He exclaimed excitedly, explaining after her lack of response. “It means yay in Japanese…anyway…”
She couldn’t fight the grin that was threatening to take over her face at his enthusiasm as he continued to explain the random international related entertainment options he had managed to round up in her absence. Her attention was recaptured, however; when he seemed to hesitate before handing over the last thing in his hands.
“Oh, and this…it’s just a piece of junk really. My gran brought it back for me ages ago as a souvenir, but I thought it was…pretty and I just thought you might like it…cause you’re…and you might…anyway.” He finished by clearing his throat and shoving the object in her general direction in a decidedly embarrassed fashion.
Abby put down the DVDs she’d been holding and carefully took the mystery object in her hands. What she saw nearly brought tears to her eyes, and did succeed in rendering her speechless.
It was just a little snow globe, a miniature Eiffel Tower trapped within the glass orb and little flecks of sparkling white coating the scene when she flipped it over. But the fact that it was from Connor, a tiny token of his feelings for her, made it clear that it was so much more than just something pretty. It was an unspoken declaration that he would give her the world if he could.
“In a way,” Abby thought, surprising even herself with how sentimental she was feeling. “He already has.”
Abby smiled again, watching the slowly floating flakes for a moment before glancing up to find Connor watching her, his eyes impossibly soft.
“Connor, I love it,” Abby offered, reaching out to place a hand on his arm and not missing the adorable start he gave at the contact.
“Good, well, that’s…good,” Connor stuttered, babbling on as he tended to do when nervous. “There’s food too, to complete the evening. I wanted to stick with the theme, but eating slugs or raw fish freaks me out so I went for New York style pizza, or as close I could get on short notice…”
“Connor,” Abby interrupted softly the hand on his arm sliding up to his cheek, the near darkness lending her courage. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” Connor replied on an exhale, and she could feel him trembling slightly under her touch. “You’re just lucky I had the equipment lying around, it wasn’t too hard to put together really.”
“No,” Abby murmured, reaching up to wrap the arm still clutching the snow globe around his neck. She leaned up as his hands came to rest on her waist, and whispered mere inches from his mouth. “I’m just lucky I have you.”
“Yeah?” He breathed, leaning his forehead down to rest lightly against hers.
“Yeah,” Abby nodded gently, feeling his head move with hers.
And when it was Connor that bridged the last inch separating them and brushed his lips softly against hers, Abby wasn’t nearly as surprised as she would have thought she would be.
And when she returned the kiss with a tender enthusiasm, Abby wasn’t nearly as afraid as she would have thought she would be.
Abby Maitland wasn’t like other girls. Most girls did not have to worry about cracks in time, did not lose friends to prehistoric creatures, and definitely did not truly understand that each day could be their last.
“But,” Abby thought to herself as she and Connor settled in for a night that held the promise of so much more than watching anime. “Most girls don’t have Connor Temple either.”
Author: pink_flame_87
Recipient: dominique012
Prompt #1: Japan, snow globe, lucky
Prompt#3: London, tourist, envy
Pairing(s): Abby/Connor
Rating: PG
Genre: Slight angst, romance
Summary: Abby wants to see the world. Connor wants to give it to her.
Disclaimer: Primeval does not belong to me, no copyright infringement intended
Written for the Spring 2010 primevalathon.
Abby Maitland was not like other girls. Most girls did not know there were roughly 3,800 species of lizards, did not spend their days chasing down doorways to other times, and definitely did not have prehistoric pets named Rex flying around their flats.
No, Abby was nothing like the girls who had terrified Connor at university, the ones who traveled in packs and seemed to split their time between ignoring him and staring at him as though he was something unpleasant they’d stepped in.
She was, however; every bit as confusing to Connor as those girls had been. Sometimes he found himself tallying up her behavior in his mind, attempting to figure out if they were friends or something more. She was the girl who had lent him a fiver for an after hours slushie, and let him convince her to watch a Sci-Fi movie at least once a month. She was also the girl who had fallen for Stephen, and kicked him out of the flat in favor of her less than trustworthy brother. She was the girl who hugged him, but didn’t kiss him, who hated the only girlfriend he’d ever brought round, but didn’t seem to want the position for herself, and currently she was the girl who was knee deep in one of the worst moods Connor had ever witnessed.
“Abby, are you sure I can’t help you?” Connor asked for probably the tenth time, ducking as more random objects were hurled in his general direction.
Abby, who was presently buried deep within her closet looking for something merely grunted in response and continued tossing things over her shoulder.
Connor managed to stay silent for roughly another five seconds before venturing, “So that’s a no then?”
“Argh, stop it Connor! I am more than capable of finding something in my own closet.” Abby snapped, continuing her violent method of searching.
“Right, yeah, you’ve clearly got things under control,” Connor stuttered, taken aback by the angry tone of Abby’s voice. “I’ll just sit here and keep you company then, shall I?” Connor finished in a falsely bright voice sitting on the edge of Abby’s bed.
“Got it!” Abby finally called, backing out of her closet clutching a box.
It looked nondescript enough, and Connor was just about to ask what was in it when Abby marched past him out of her room.
“Abby?” He called, chasing her down the hallway and towards the kitchen. “Where are you going?”
“To get rid of this,” Abby replied in a matter of fact tone as he caught up with her, just in time to see her dump the mysterious box unceremoniously into the rubbish bin.
“What are you doing?” Connor exclaimed, immediately reaching forward and retrieving the box before Abby could stop him. “You spent all that time looking for it just to throw it out?”
“Give it back, Connor!” Abby demanded making a leap for it until he raised it above his head and out of her reach.
“Just tell me what it is and why it upset you so much,” Connor insisted, completely baffled by her behavior. “I’m worried about you, Abby.”
All of the fight seemed to drain out of Abby as her shoulders slumped and she leaned back against the counter.
“It was a dream, Connor, and it’s never going to happen now so I don’t want it sitting around reminding me of that,” She explained quietly.
Connor was even more confused then he had been before, but he didn’t feel his usual urge to run away when something between him and Abby got a bit too strange or intense. Instead his only thought was to determine what had Abby looking so sad and figure out a way to make it better.
He crossed to stand beside her, leaning against the counter to her left. He put his hand on the lid of the offending box, and with a quick glance at her to make sure she wouldn’t stop him, he slowly opened it. He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but it certainly hadn’t been a pile of maps and travel books.
He sifted through a few of the pamphlets under the maps, noting the bold print declaring “PARIS”, “TOKYO”, “NEW YORK”.
“Ah, now I see why you were so upset,” Connor said finally, attempting a lighthearted reply. “Holidays are very stressful.”
He was rewarded for his efforts with a tug at the edge of Abby’s lips that almost resembled a smile. Encouraged, he tried again.
“No, really,” Connor continued waving a pamphlet around for emphasis. “I once went on a holiday and came back so exhausted I had to take another week off just to recover.”
This time Abby’s smile was real and Connor was absolutely certain that cliché or not his heart had just skipped several beats.
“Connor…” She trailed off as the smile slid off of her face almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Ever since I was a kid I wanted to see the world. I’ve spent my whole life planning out all the places I’d go someday, and right before I got mixed up in all of this I’d decided I was finally going to go. I was going to start in Paris, be a proper tourist, and just see how far I could get, you know? But then all of this happened…and I don’t regret it, but what Lester said today it really got to me.”
Abby said all of this in a rush, and it took Connor a moment to catch up. “What did Lester say?”
“You know, he said ‘Don’t leave town this weekend’, just joking about how we can’t make it through two days without some disaster these days. But the thing is he’s right, and it just made realize this is it, Connor.”
Connor usually considered himself to be an incredibly smart person, but he wasn’t following Abby’s train of thought. “What’s it?”
“THIS,” She gestured around her as though whatever she was describing was really in the kitchen with them. “This life we live where we can’t make any plans because we know we’re probably going to get a call saying that a humongosaurus is rampaging around London.”
“Well, that’s unlikely,” Connor stated reasonably. “There’s no such thing as a humongosaurus.”
He was rewarded for his trouble with a glare from Abby.
“The point is Connor, this isn’t the kind of job you can just quit, or take a holiday when it becomes too much. Sometimes I envy people who can just take a break. We don’t have any idea what these anomalies are or how to stop them, and without Cutter…we’ll probably just keep doing this until something happens to us too.” Abby muttered, her gaze directed firmly at her hands, which were clutching the edge of the counter hard enough to turn them white.
“Abs…” Connor couldn’t fight the instinct that had him reaching out for Abby nor could he fight down the surge of disappointment as she shifted slightly away from his comforting reach.
“It’s fine, Connor,” She told him firmly, her tough outer shell firmly back in place. “Really, it’s fine, I’m fine, everything’s…fine. I’m just going to go out for a bit, ok?”
She didn’t wait for an answer, just left Connor staring after her as she stopped briefly to grab a bag and her keys before exiting the flat as fast as possible. Connor was stunned. He glanced down at the box he still held in his hands and felt a sudden fierce longing that he was someone who could just whisk Abby away to see the world and take a break from all the terror and tragedy that seemed to have become a daily part of their lives.
If he was honest it didn’t sound half bad to him either. A slow smile made it’s away across his face as a spark of inspiration began to wriggle its way into his brain. He didn’t have a private jet at his disposal but he was clever, and maybe he could put together the next best thing.
Abby had been gone almost three hours before she finally felt like she had herself together enough to return to the flat. She normally prided herself on having the ability to keep her emotions in check at all times and the thought of letting Connor see her so vulnerable had been terrifying enough to send her fleeing, even if it wasn’t exactly fair to him. Connor was a great guy, if a little geeky and clueless, and he didn’t deserve to be stuck with someone who would rather tear her flat apart then just explain that she was feeling afraid.
Abby took a deep breath before inserting her key into the door of the flat, telling herself that she’d offer to watch whatever ridiculous film Connor wanted to watch to make up for her earlier erratic behavior. She pushed the door open slowly, revealing a surprisingly pitch black room.
“Connor?” She called cautiously, reaching out and groping blindly searching for the light switch.
Before she could flip the switch, the room was suddenly bathed in a beautiful barrage of images that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. The walls of the flat seemed to have given way to a cycling set of crystal clear images, transfixing her gaze with the Eiffel Tower, the New York skyline, and Mt. Fuji. Above them all, the ceiling sparkled with moving pinpricks of light forming rearranging constellations around the loft.
Abby gasped, her breath seeming to catch in her throat at the beauty she found herself unexpectedly surrounded by. She took a step towards the nearest wall, laying her palm flat against the current image, a beach scene so life like she swore she could almost feel the breeze coming off the sea.
“Do you like it?” Connor’s quiet question took her by surprise. She’d been so wrapped up in the beautiful display she hadn’t even heard his approach.
“It’s beautiful,” She whispered, palm sliding slowly from the wall as she turned to face him.
His quick grin made her heart stutter in her chest and she didn’t care in that moment what a cliché that line of thought was.
“There’s more,” He told her excitedly tapping a button on the device he held in his hand so that the lights came up just enough for them to see each other properly but not enough to disturb the images still being projected onto the walls.
He darted across the room returning with an armful of DVDs which he quickly thrust into her hands.
“Japan’s finest Anime and gangster films from the collection of yours truly, yatta!” He exclaimed excitedly, explaining after her lack of response. “It means yay in Japanese…anyway…”
She couldn’t fight the grin that was threatening to take over her face at his enthusiasm as he continued to explain the random international related entertainment options he had managed to round up in her absence. Her attention was recaptured, however; when he seemed to hesitate before handing over the last thing in his hands.
“Oh, and this…it’s just a piece of junk really. My gran brought it back for me ages ago as a souvenir, but I thought it was…pretty and I just thought you might like it…cause you’re…and you might…anyway.” He finished by clearing his throat and shoving the object in her general direction in a decidedly embarrassed fashion.
Abby put down the DVDs she’d been holding and carefully took the mystery object in her hands. What she saw nearly brought tears to her eyes, and did succeed in rendering her speechless.
It was just a little snow globe, a miniature Eiffel Tower trapped within the glass orb and little flecks of sparkling white coating the scene when she flipped it over. But the fact that it was from Connor, a tiny token of his feelings for her, made it clear that it was so much more than just something pretty. It was an unspoken declaration that he would give her the world if he could.
“In a way,” Abby thought, surprising even herself with how sentimental she was feeling. “He already has.”
Abby smiled again, watching the slowly floating flakes for a moment before glancing up to find Connor watching her, his eyes impossibly soft.
“Connor, I love it,” Abby offered, reaching out to place a hand on his arm and not missing the adorable start he gave at the contact.
“Good, well, that’s…good,” Connor stuttered, babbling on as he tended to do when nervous. “There’s food too, to complete the evening. I wanted to stick with the theme, but eating slugs or raw fish freaks me out so I went for New York style pizza, or as close I could get on short notice…”
“Connor,” Abby interrupted softly the hand on his arm sliding up to his cheek, the near darkness lending her courage. “Thank you.”
“Oh,” Connor replied on an exhale, and she could feel him trembling slightly under her touch. “You’re just lucky I had the equipment lying around, it wasn’t too hard to put together really.”
“No,” Abby murmured, reaching up to wrap the arm still clutching the snow globe around his neck. She leaned up as his hands came to rest on her waist, and whispered mere inches from his mouth. “I’m just lucky I have you.”
“Yeah?” He breathed, leaning his forehead down to rest lightly against hers.
“Yeah,” Abby nodded gently, feeling his head move with hers.
And when it was Connor that bridged the last inch separating them and brushed his lips softly against hers, Abby wasn’t nearly as surprised as she would have thought she would be.
And when she returned the kiss with a tender enthusiasm, Abby wasn’t nearly as afraid as she would have thought she would be.
Abby Maitland wasn’t like other girls. Most girls did not have to worry about cracks in time, did not lose friends to prehistoric creatures, and definitely did not truly understand that each day could be their last.
“But,” Abby thought to herself as she and Connor settled in for a night that held the promise of so much more than watching anime. “Most girls don’t have Connor Temple either.”