Primevalathon: "The Horseman Connor"
Title: The Horseman Connor
Author: Keenir.
Beta: Babnol.
Recipient: Lazlo Darien.
Prompt(s): Genres: Hot weather, Angst with a happy or hopeful ending, Happy endings.
(not sure how I did on the Romance front)
Pairing(s), if any: Connor/Abby.
Rating: Mature.
Summary: By helping, Connor Temple paved the way for an apocalypse with only three air-breathing survivors.
Warnings: implication of massive extinctions.
Disclaimer: I own none of the canon characters.
" 'Anihinihe ke ola"
("Life is in a precarious position")
(?) ancient Hawaiian saying.
======================================================================
"C'mon, Connor, you've gotta eat," Abby said.
Connor shook his sun-baked head.
"It's not that bad, really."
Yes it is, Connor knew. And its my fault.
"One bite, Conn'. One bite, and I won't ask anything else of you," Abby promised.
It wasn't her words that swayed him - it was her face that made him cave. "One bite," he reminded her before popping a jello-ish clot into his mouth.
Yep, he reflected, it tastes like failure.
Fail Jello. An ocean of it.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````
It had begun less than a week ago, 800 million years ago in the time of Tiktaaliks that Connor Temple's good intentions had homogenized the Earth.
"You're doing fine," Beckett told Connor while supervising the team's removal of the tumors from the tiiktaaliks' heads, having shown them beforehand how to do it.
"I have to say," Nick said, "I'm glad the anomalies are staying open long enough for us to do this."
"Yeah," Abby agreed, feeling the sweat bead down her neck and making her shirt stick to her back. "Where'd you learn how to do this, anyway?"
"Hobart Zoo, Tasmania," Beckett said. Though the Devils' tumors're more tightly-bound to them, there's at least one commonality: "These things we're removing are spread by biting each others' jaws.
While Connor was excising the lumpy cancer sticking to the stem-tetrapod's muzzle, Abby was calling upon years of working in a zoo: keeping the creature pinned down. "You okay, Abby?" Connor asked, careful with the knife.
"She's a sleeping alligator here, Connor," Abby said. Stephen had been sent home after one had gotten loose and tore into his leg; and even after that, Cutter had insisted they stay and deal with this plague - which, as it was unattested in the fossil record, had to be the work of Helen - or of the mysterious Christine.
"Could be worse," Beckett said. "Could be a Dinocroc."
Not about to be out-geeked, Connor asked, "Does Deinosuchus taste like chicken?" and twisted the knife literally. "Got it," got the last little bit sliced neatly from the not-entirely-an-amphibian's face.
"You tell me," Becker said.
"Can I let go now, Connor?" Abby asked.
"Uh, sure," Connor said. "On three - one, two, three -" and they both sprang back, out of reach of the snapping jaws and whacking tail of the not-fully-a-fish. "Break time?" putting the cancerous mass into a ziplock baggie which, properly sealed, he clipped to his belt.
"Connor, we've only been here for a few hours." Lester had aqcuiesced to them out here for so long, but only if they worked in shifts, with off-duty shifts taken in the Age Of Man with the ARC. "Tell you what, one more, and you and Professor Cutter can go exploring."
"Okay," Connor said, and, seeing a mottled jaw breaking the water's surface, said excitedly, "There's one!" and charging in after it.
"Conn-" Abby said, sighed, and went in after him.
They got it, but before they could haul it to shore, it rolled over, tumbling the three of them off a submerged ledge, into water easily ten feet deeper.
Their abrupt sinking alarmed a Baphetid, who unleashed a jolt.
Connor and Abby drifted to the surface, where they drew in great gasps of air. "Abby!"
"Right here," she replied. "Where is everybody?" hearing absolutely nothing. At the very least, she reasoned, somebody should be rushing out on account of how they'd fallen in. And yet Abby heard nothing that wasn't native to this epoch.
"That's weird," Connor agreed, looking at a beach packed firm by the thousands of little feet. The beach where Becker and Cutter had been less than a minute ago.
"The hell?" Abby asked, swimming for shore, joined there by Connor.
Five minutes' searching revealed nothing more than that the anomaly had gone spherical. Half an hour, and nothing new was known. An hour, with forays slighty upbeach, slightly downbeach, and a short ways inland - telling them nothing.
They met back at the sealed anomaly, and shared what they'd found. "Any ideas?" Abby asked of him.
Connor opened his mouth, and the anomaly popped back open. Changing his mind, Connor instead said, "I'll make a quick look?"
"We both will," Abby said.
Together they stepped through, and together they slipped down the hillock.
"Ugh!" The air stank of rotten eggs, cow farts, and worse things. The soup-thick air had precious little oxygen in it.
They pulled each other back up the hillock, snatching glances around for any evidence their friends had been hereabouts.
None - there was nothing to see in this horizon-filling expanse of mudflats, where the only sound was of bubbles of gas belching out from the morass.
As the two of them fell back through the anomaly, Connor didn't mention that he'd scraped against a rock - there was no hurt skin or abraded jeans, only a collection bag was missing: one fewer ziplock of cancer for later study.
As Abby and Connor lay there catching their breaths, the anomaly returned to a sealed state, a quivering shuddering across it every few seconds or so.
Uh-oh, Connor thought to himself as he looked towards dry land, seeing no rocks, no plants, nothing crawling or flying - only an endless field of jello that Connor was certain hadn't been there before that ever-so-brief fall through the Anomaly. Did I do that? and could only come up with one answer that fit the facts: Yes.
*******
six and a half days later:
"C'mon, Connor, you've gotta eat," Abby said.
Connor shook his sun-baked head. The temperature was no different from before this mess had begun; it wasn't much consolation.
"It's not that bad, really." Aside from the ocassional gasp and sneeze of the nonland, it was very pleasantly quiet all the time.
Yes it is, Connor knew. And its my fault.
"One bite, Conn'. One bite, and I won't ask anything else of you," Abby promised.
It wasn't her words that swayed him - it was her face that made him cave. "One bite," he reminded her before popping a jello-ish clot into his mouth.
Yep, he reflected, it tastes like failure.
Fail Jello. An ocean of it.
Abby came over to sit beside him. "No matter what, Connor, I'm glad you're here with me."
"Really?" was all he could say. There's a breathing terrestrial groundcover evolved from cancer, and me and you're gonna me the only land-dwelling life forever aside from it. And you're still glad I'm here?
In answer, she kissed him.
Okay, Connor thought to himself, putting an arm around Abby, maybe this isn't so bad after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The End
Author: Keenir.
Beta: Babnol.
Recipient: Lazlo Darien.
Prompt(s): Genres: Hot weather, Angst with a happy or hopeful ending, Happy endings.
(not sure how I did on the Romance front)
Pairing(s), if any: Connor/Abby.
Rating: Mature.
Summary: By helping, Connor Temple paved the way for an apocalypse with only three air-breathing survivors.
Warnings: implication of massive extinctions.
Disclaimer: I own none of the canon characters.
" 'Anihinihe ke ola"
("Life is in a precarious position")
(?) ancient Hawaiian saying.
======================================================================
"C'mon, Connor, you've gotta eat," Abby said.
Connor shook his sun-baked head.
"It's not that bad, really."
Yes it is, Connor knew. And its my fault.
"One bite, Conn'. One bite, and I won't ask anything else of you," Abby promised.
It wasn't her words that swayed him - it was her face that made him cave. "One bite," he reminded her before popping a jello-ish clot into his mouth.
Yep, he reflected, it tastes like failure.
Fail Jello. An ocean of it.
```````````````````````````````````````````````````
It had begun less than a week ago, 800 million years ago in the time of Tiktaaliks that Connor Temple's good intentions had homogenized the Earth.
"You're doing fine," Beckett told Connor while supervising the team's removal of the tumors from the tiiktaaliks' heads, having shown them beforehand how to do it.
"I have to say," Nick said, "I'm glad the anomalies are staying open long enough for us to do this."
"Yeah," Abby agreed, feeling the sweat bead down her neck and making her shirt stick to her back. "Where'd you learn how to do this, anyway?"
"Hobart Zoo, Tasmania," Beckett said. Though the Devils' tumors're more tightly-bound to them, there's at least one commonality: "These things we're removing are spread by biting each others' jaws.
While Connor was excising the lumpy cancer sticking to the stem-tetrapod's muzzle, Abby was calling upon years of working in a zoo: keeping the creature pinned down. "You okay, Abby?" Connor asked, careful with the knife.
"She's a sleeping alligator here, Connor," Abby said. Stephen had been sent home after one had gotten loose and tore into his leg; and even after that, Cutter had insisted they stay and deal with this plague - which, as it was unattested in the fossil record, had to be the work of Helen - or of the mysterious Christine.
"Could be worse," Beckett said. "Could be a Dinocroc."
Not about to be out-geeked, Connor asked, "Does Deinosuchus taste like chicken?" and twisted the knife literally. "Got it," got the last little bit sliced neatly from the not-entirely-an-amphibian's face.
"You tell me," Becker said.
"Can I let go now, Connor?" Abby asked.
"Uh, sure," Connor said. "On three - one, two, three -" and they both sprang back, out of reach of the snapping jaws and whacking tail of the not-fully-a-fish. "Break time?" putting the cancerous mass into a ziplock baggie which, properly sealed, he clipped to his belt.
"Connor, we've only been here for a few hours." Lester had aqcuiesced to them out here for so long, but only if they worked in shifts, with off-duty shifts taken in the Age Of Man with the ARC. "Tell you what, one more, and you and Professor Cutter can go exploring."
"Okay," Connor said, and, seeing a mottled jaw breaking the water's surface, said excitedly, "There's one!" and charging in after it.
"Conn-" Abby said, sighed, and went in after him.
They got it, but before they could haul it to shore, it rolled over, tumbling the three of them off a submerged ledge, into water easily ten feet deeper.
Their abrupt sinking alarmed a Baphetid, who unleashed a jolt.
Connor and Abby drifted to the surface, where they drew in great gasps of air. "Abby!"
"Right here," she replied. "Where is everybody?" hearing absolutely nothing. At the very least, she reasoned, somebody should be rushing out on account of how they'd fallen in. And yet Abby heard nothing that wasn't native to this epoch.
"That's weird," Connor agreed, looking at a beach packed firm by the thousands of little feet. The beach where Becker and Cutter had been less than a minute ago.
"The hell?" Abby asked, swimming for shore, joined there by Connor.
Five minutes' searching revealed nothing more than that the anomaly had gone spherical. Half an hour, and nothing new was known. An hour, with forays slighty upbeach, slightly downbeach, and a short ways inland - telling them nothing.
They met back at the sealed anomaly, and shared what they'd found. "Any ideas?" Abby asked of him.
Connor opened his mouth, and the anomaly popped back open. Changing his mind, Connor instead said, "I'll make a quick look?"
"We both will," Abby said.
Together they stepped through, and together they slipped down the hillock.
"Ugh!" The air stank of rotten eggs, cow farts, and worse things. The soup-thick air had precious little oxygen in it.
They pulled each other back up the hillock, snatching glances around for any evidence their friends had been hereabouts.
None - there was nothing to see in this horizon-filling expanse of mudflats, where the only sound was of bubbles of gas belching out from the morass.
As the two of them fell back through the anomaly, Connor didn't mention that he'd scraped against a rock - there was no hurt skin or abraded jeans, only a collection bag was missing: one fewer ziplock of cancer for later study.
As Abby and Connor lay there catching their breaths, the anomaly returned to a sealed state, a quivering shuddering across it every few seconds or so.
Uh-oh, Connor thought to himself as he looked towards dry land, seeing no rocks, no plants, nothing crawling or flying - only an endless field of jello that Connor was certain hadn't been there before that ever-so-brief fall through the Anomaly. Did I do that? and could only come up with one answer that fit the facts: Yes.
*******
six and a half days later:
"C'mon, Connor, you've gotta eat," Abby said.
Connor shook his sun-baked head. The temperature was no different from before this mess had begun; it wasn't much consolation.
"It's not that bad, really." Aside from the ocassional gasp and sneeze of the nonland, it was very pleasantly quiet all the time.
Yes it is, Connor knew. And its my fault.
"One bite, Conn'. One bite, and I won't ask anything else of you," Abby promised.
It wasn't her words that swayed him - it was her face that made him cave. "One bite," he reminded her before popping a jello-ish clot into his mouth.
Yep, he reflected, it tastes like failure.
Fail Jello. An ocean of it.
Abby came over to sit beside him. "No matter what, Connor, I'm glad you're here with me."
"Really?" was all he could say. There's a breathing terrestrial groundcover evolved from cancer, and me and you're gonna me the only land-dwelling life forever aside from it. And you're still glad I'm here?
In answer, she kissed him.
Okay, Connor thought to himself, putting an arm around Abby, maybe this isn't so bad after all.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The End