Primeval fic: A Twist in a Relative Timeline 2/3
Title: A Twist in a Relative Timeline
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything anyone recognises and I'm not making any money from it.
Rating: R
Summary: When time travel's involved, you never know when you'll meet up with old friends.
Notes: And the backstory continues. I've moved the rating up to R because, well, there's horribleness here I wasn't quite sure I was going to go into detail on, but I did. So . . . higher rating, just in case.
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Stephen woke to Connor staring at him from inches away. He started, then shook his head, smiling in amusement. By the time he and Connor had parted ways all those years before, he'd actually got used to Connor doing that. The way Connor had explained it to him, once he'd regained enough coherency to do so, was that the instincts he ran on were no longer human, but a mixture of the cocktail of genetic alterations based on various animals. It meant that there were polite behaviours he'd had to fake the whole time, and on thinking about it now, Stephen wondered if Connor had been forced to relearn human social behaviours when he'd got home, partially accounting for his strange behaviour as an adult.
Seeing that he was awake, Connor grinned happily and playfully nuzzled Stephen. A muffled thud from the door brought both their attention to it, and Connor's face immediately darkened. "Hey," he said, petting Connor like a cat. Connor's hackles lowered, so to speak, but he still looked suspicious. A moment later, Abby and Cutter walked into the room bearing a tray. "Tell me that's not hospital food," Stephen said to them.
Connor's eyes narrowed and he watched the interplay with great care. Then he edged over toward Abby, his nostrils flaring. Abby and Nick were both watching him cautiously now, and Stephen waited, because as much as he trusted Connor with his life, he really had no idea how Connor would react to people he didn't recognise from when he was fifteen. "No," Abby told Stephen as she eyed Connor. "There's an italian place nearby, and we didn't know how Connor'd be, so I got peanut butter sandwiches for Connor. They're his favourite."
As the suspicion eased away on Connor's face regarding Abby, he approached Nick, staring at him very hard. Abby's jaw dropped. "Does he think he's a wolf or something? He's playing dominance games with Cutter."
"Well, since right now he could tear Nick limb from limb without breaking a sweat, and I've seen it happen," Stephen said trying not to laugh, "I expect he might have a bit of a point on a purely primitive biggest stick sort of way." Connor's nostrils flared again, then suddenly his eyes lit up. Stephen felt himself relax. "Oh good. I'd hoped he'd recognise you both as part of the pack, but I didn't know how well that part of him had been working over the last year and a bit."
"Pack?" Abby asked as Connor bounded over to her and nuzzled at her. "Does that . . . I looked at the notes. Does that mean he's got, sort of, canine or feline instincts?"
"I don't exactly know," Stephen admitted. "This is all from after Connor got back to, and I quote, 'sort of normalish'," he told them. Then he sat on the floor, pulling the tray over and tossing Connor the sandwiches. Connor tore into them happily, offering bits to Abby, Stephen and Nick, but trying to sort of mother Stephen until Stephen started eating his pasta. "He had trouble then, sort of running with human socialisation but with animal instincts. We didn't know at that point, and I still don't," he told Abby pointedly, "What animals had gone into this. So, Connor was trying to verbalise something without a framework."
When Connor offered her another bit of sandwich, Abby gravely considered it, then accepted it. "So, he's trying to bond with us like packmates," she said, her face set in concentration as she looked at what Connor was doing, "And right now," she told Cutter rather severely, around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly, while Stephen tossed Connor a bit of ravioli, "He's doing what he feels is the polite thing, and offering the other pack members a share of the food."
Nick sighed and took the sandwich piece, eating it with a look on his face as though he was eating dirt. Connor looked chastened. "How did you escape?" he asked Stephen.
"Well, all along Connor had kept track of guard shift changes and what they did to get the doors open, how the doors opened and what little he could see when they dragged him off to what he called the gladitorial pit," Stephen said. Connor had snuggled up to Abby, who had clearly decided to treat Connor like a big puppy, and was stroking his hair while she listened, clearly parsing through his actions with a behaviourist's eye. "But he also noticed, and I think this is what saved us both, that the food we were getting, and the bowls were very specifically directed at one or the other of us, was different. It tasted even worse, but he'd try to distract the guards and mix them together, to see if he could defray the effects."
"So they weren't just using some sort of shots," Nick said speculatively, "They were quite possibly doing something to the food." He frowned in concentration.
Stephen nodded. "We didn't know for certain, of course, but I think so, because the other teens got more and more short-tempered as time passed. I think I was the only one who didn't get hit."
Abby's breath hissed sharply at that. "They were hitting the younger ones?"
"You have to understand," Stephen told her, wanted them both to not judge too quickly, "Their brain chemistries were off. Or wrong."
"You bloody brat!"
The slap echoed in the hall, and Connor snapped, "Jim! Get ahold of yourself! It's the drugs!"
"Jesus, I . . . Bernie, I'm sorry. I didn't . . . God, why?" The last was a plea to a higher power that wasn't answering.
Bernie's soft voice, proud Newfie, whatever that meant, said, "It's okay Jim. I know you don't mean to."
Connor whirled, a roar a fury erupting out of the teen as he buried a fist in the wall. His knuckles came away bloody, but a small spiderweb of cracks radiated from the point of contact. His eyes focussed on that, suddenly concentrating.
"I think that was when he got his idea for escape." Stephen told them. "He'd hit the wall before, but it was the first time he'd caused damage. He was getting stronger." Connor sat up, looking at him, then was at his side in a moment, maybe having heard the shaky undertones to Stephen's voice. He crouched beside his former charge, then wrapped a comforting arm around Stephen's shoulders. "But everyone else was getting worse."
"Worse?" Nick asked. He looked and sounded shaken. "Worse how? How much worse if these kids were being made hyper-aggressive?"
"It happened to Quinn and Fatima first," Stephen said bleakly. It had been horrible. Because it was his first real experience with death. Not the way the goldfish was found one day, belly up, and his dad had explained about things sometimes going to sleep and never waking up again, not even the knowledge that Jackie down the hallway wasn't coming back because her teenager Elsie wasn't coming back. "They'd taken Quinn for another round with the scientists, and when she came back she was . . . worse. Edgier." It had haunted his nightmares for years, still did, and he couldn't help but lean into Connor's steadfast presence.
They bolted awake to screams, to the sound of Will and Donnell shouting at Quinn to stop, pleading with her. An awful tearing sound seemed to make the whole world stop, even around the snarling coming from the end of the line of cells. Sobbing could be heard and sharp voices telling the younger ones to look away.
Quinn was dragged past them by two of the heavyset soldiers. Connor tried to stop Stevie from seeing, but he had to know and managed to squirm enough to see around Connor. Quinn was coated in blood, enough to make her arms slick and hard to hold as she tried to bite her captors, and behind her a guard carried a bag, out of which poked a bit of dark hair, still in the ribboned braids Quinn had done the little girl's hair up in. The ribbons, supposed to be pink, had been stained red, too.
"One by one," Stephen told them, "They'd break. Connor was the only one who hadn't so much as hit me, and I couldn't . . . I had to believe he was stronger than that, because it was . . . terrifying."
Abby was crying. "Oh, Stephen. And Connor was . . . they were trying to make him like that?"
"Christ," Nick managed to rasp out.
"Then they took him, and he was . . . angry. Tense. For the first time I really thought he'd hurt me," Stephen confessed. Because Quinn had been the sweetest girl until they'd done what they'd done to her. "But he just told me that I'd know when, and to run straight, take the last left, then straight again and not to stop for anything." Connor whined anxiously, and Stephen ran a hand over Connor's head to soothe him.
Hours passed and Connor was pacing, the other children funereally silent. They all knew what was coming, and Stevie could hear the sniffles of the younger ones. Just as suddenly though, the wait was over. Because the soldiers were there, and Connor hadn't done anything to him, merely sat in the corner, his fingers laced into his hair, muttering to himself. As the door cracked open, though, he exploded into motion.
The two soldiers went flying back, their machine guns clattering down the hall. Stevie knew that this was what Connor had meant and ran for the door. Connor, preoccupied with one soldier, couldn't stop the other from grabbing at Stevie. But the five-year-old had had enough himself, and kicked the other man as hard as he could, getting the grip to loosen, then dove unexpectedly for the pistol at the man's hip, got it, and took off running the way Connor had told him to.
He was nearly to the door when suddenly Connor was there, scooping him up and his longer legs carrying them both out of the compound and into the outdoors. A curtain wall rose in front of them, but Connor seemed to barely notice it as he scrambled up it one-handed, vaulting and landing from a twenty-foot drop as easily as stepping off the pavement an onto the street. They whipped through the strange forest, finally coming to rest what felt like miles and miles from where they'd started.
"Wow! Connor! We're safe!" he'd exclaimed excitedly. They'd got away. Now it was only a matter of time before they got home and got help for everyone.
His only response was Connor's uncomprehending eyes and an inhuman-sounding growl.
"I was pretty sure then I'd just managed to escape only to finally have Connor turn like Quinn and the others," Stephen admitted.
Connor's voice, sounding disused and raspy spoke. "You were lucky. I had. I'm pretty sure I ate something I'd ripped off one of the guards."
They turned to look, and Connor looked back at them, pale, nauseated and sick at heart.
"Connor!" Abby exclaimed and threw herself at him, hugging him. For a moment he devoted his attention to holding her and, Stephen could see, taking in her scent. "Were you sniffing me?" she asked curiously.
He flushed. "Er . . . yeah. It's sort of hard not to," he told her. "I mean, I just . . ."
She gave him an understanding look. "I saw your notes," she told him. "Stephen suggested we see if there were something the ARC specialists could come up with to help."
"Connor," Nick interrupted. "I know this might have been . . . hard, but why didn't you . . . why wouldn't you say anything?"
"You mean before, when we didn't know for sure we could trust Lester? To Leek?" Connor's eyes began to snap and he advanced on Nick. "Or just when-"
Stephen interposed himself between them. "Don't do this, Connor."
"He's not . . ." Stephen saw the struggle Connor was going through, his human intellect warring with the instinct to take on the pack's alpha. "I . . ."
Unlike Cutter, who was angrily meeting Connor's eyes and pushing all his buttons, Abby saw what was going on. "And we'll be going," she said hastily. "I'm sure Jenny and Lester'll be glad to hear you're better now." And with that, she manhandled Cutter out the door. Just before it slammed shut, the sound of a lecture about wolf pecking orders came drifting back.
Connor relaxed at once. "I'm sorry," he said miserably. "When I'm by myself I can tell what I'm supposed to be doing, but he just . . ."
"It's alright, Connor," Stephen said. Then he braced himself to confess something. "I know how that feels."
"How can you?" Connor snapped, his eyes distressed. "No one ever did anything to you, I made sure of it. Even the food . . ." He trailed off. "The food. You . . ." the realisation seemed to seep through him. "That's why you're so good."
Stephen nodded. "I wasn't as badly off as you," he said. "How could I be? But sometimes I know I'm hearing and seeing things no one else can. I shouldn't be able to do some of the things I do. And-"
"You always know just the right thing to calm me down," Connor realised. "It's not a lucky guess, it's instinct." Stephen sank to the floor and watched as Connor sighed and shed the delicate balancing act he'd been doing, pretending to be normal, and let Connor drape himself protectively over his lap. From the outside, it might have looked romantic, and Stephen had no doubt that rumours would run rife in no time, but instincts he'd long suppressed just sighed over his alpha being back. Cutter was the team leader, but some small part of Stephen had accepted Connor as his pack alpha.
With Connor no longer violent and irrational by normal standards, they were quickly transferred to another room, however. A private room, but one with a door they could close and open from the inside at will, and Connor let the nurses change his dressings and cluck over the bullet holes, which were closing up far faster than would be expected if Connor had been all he appeared to be. When they were finally alone again, Stephen broached the topic he knew he'd have to. "You know that first day in class? I recognised you, and then you managed that spectacular fall and I was sure it was just coincidence."
"I thought you were familiar," Connor admitted, "But, well, you're not as short as you were then, for one." He grinned.
"I'd hope so," Stephen told him dryly. "I have to say, there had to have been less painful ways for you to pretend you weren't a . . ." he searched for a word that was accurate, but wasn't hurtful.
"A mutant," Connor said placidly. "Like the X-Men. Or maybe the Hulk, since that was done to him."
"Thinking of giving Hugh Jackman a run for his money?" Stephen asked.
Another happy grin, "That could work." Then he sobered. "But I wasn't faking, Steve." He cut himself off sharply before he added the extra syllable. Stephen was grateful for the restraint. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
"I wasn't faking," he started again, "Because the stuff I took to amplify my seratonin and dopamine levels and even out everything else so I could cope with things, it messes with your equilibrium and stuff."
He groaned. "All this time I couldn't tell if it was you," Stephen told him, "Precisely because of those things. I mean, you'd never have lost track of Rex or mistaken a mascot for a real cat, but there you were."
Connor winced. "I'd overdosed that day," he admitted. "I was thinking I'd be spending the whole day in the ARC, having to stare at the ADD and not break Leek's skeevy little neck for being a skeevy little weasel."
"You could tell?" Stephen asked. "That he was behind things?"
"Nah," Connor told him. "I just knew he was up to something and that I couldn't trust him."
And then Jenny and Lester were in the doorway, and if Stephen hadn't known Lester was a bloodless beaurocrat, he might have thought the man looked tired and saddened by the turn of events. "I do wish you had said something," Lester said. "It might have saved us all a great deal of trouble with things."
"Or," Connor countered, his hackles rising, "I might've wound up trapped in some lab for the rest of my life being pinned down by people wanting to know what made me tick, or if I was just mad."
"Don't be ridiculous," Jenny said. "That would never have happened."
"Yes," Lester said with something that might have passed for an anemic little smile, "Most likely you would have had the run of the ARC, so that we could utilise your skills to their fullest potential." He turned to Stephen. "So, the unusual markers in your bloodwork, that match the ones in the bloodwork Mr. Temple has finally deigned to give us, they wouldn't happen to indicate a similar set of . . . issues to his?"
His head snapped up and his eyes narrowed at Lester. "You have a point?" He felt Connor tensing beside him, readying himself to do anything he'd need to in order to protect Stephen. Stephen very deliberately forced himself to relax, putting a hand on Connor's shoulder. "Don't. Please."
Jenny was looking a tad gormless, which made her much less irritatingly snide, and Lester had that infernal eyebrow raised at them. "I simply wondered if your feat the other day of singlehandedly capturing that scorpion rampaging about the beach had anything to do with it."
"Scorpion?" Connor asked interestedly. "You mean from the Silurian?"
"It's nothing," Stephen waved it off. "Just something Connor showed me once with a coelophysis."
"Meaning?" Jenny demanded impatiently.
Stephen grinned at Connor. "It's just a matter of timing," they chorused.
"Can I take this to mean that you will, perhaps, begin to demonstrate Mr. Hart's particular skill set, should an effective treatment balancing your brain chemistry be found?" Lester asked.
The strain of trying to act like he was normal began to tell, and Connor said offhandedly, "Oh, hardly. I still can't shoot any better. I just know how to kill things with my bare hands and a rock."
Stephen shot him a reproving look, which he got away with only by sliding a little lower where he sat and tilting his head to bare his throat in submission. Once Connor was closer to normal, they'd hash things out between them, because like hell was he playing beta to Connor Temple, but this wasn't the place or time. Connor took the message, then shot him an amused look, one which was echoed by Lester. Damn the man for being so bloody intelligent. But Connor relented and let it go. "I can see this will be an interesting readjustment period for us all," Lester told them. "I would be rather interested, however, in any details about this compound Cutter informs me you were both kept at."
"Connor would be the better one to ask," Stephen admitted. "Not only was I only five at the time, but he spent a lot of time making sure I didn't see things."
"You would have been mentally scarred for life," Connor told him. "You don't want to have seen what happened to Jackie or Will. You don't."
"Nonetheless," Lester said, "If there's some madman running about kidnapping children, I'd rather be informed of it in the hopes of stopping him."
"Her," the pair chorused.
Lester's attention sharpened. "Her?"
"I don't know," Stephen said. "But Connor always talked about 'her' and 'she'."
"And?" Lester asked.
Abby and Cutter arrived at the door just then. "And what?" Nick asked.
"And who's the woman behind the Triassic compound," Stephen told them. "Connor?"
Connor sighed, looked around, his gaze fleetingly and worriedly crossing both Stephen and Cutter's faces, before he softly admitted. "Helen Cutter."
"No," Cutter said, shaking his head. "I know Helen's gone a little . . . off. But she'd never-"
"She watched us fight and she watched us die," Connor said baldly. "I remember seeing her there. I remember seeing Elsie too tired to do any more and that . . ." he searched for a word.
"I think," Stephen said, feeling even worse than he already had for being suckered in by Helen, "The word you're looking for is the one Jessalyn used. 'Bitch'."
Connor smiled. "Jessalyn was brilliant, even if she did swear like a sailor."
Then Stephen sighed. "I knew you knew."
"I did," Connor said. "I just . . . I can't understand . . . actually, no. I can. There's a reason I didn't just lose my mind that day when you," he nodded at Lester, "Sent the SFs in after her. I saw her and I knew it was her. I don't know if it was aversion therapy or something she managed to write into the mutations, but whatever it is, I'm just . . . I can't . . . it's atavistic fear," he came out with. "Mixed with a sick sort of attraction."
Stephen nodded slowly. "You know, that . . . I didn't know it was her, but that . . . it describes it perfectly."
Abby looked at them, eyeing them both very carefully. "You . . . you ate the food that was supposed to go to Connor," Abby said as she stared at Stephen. "And it's affected you." They both nodded silently at her. She shook it off and said, "You think she did something, some sort of pheromone thing or other that could be used as a . . . a failsafe maybe?" she offered.
"That would make sense," Connor said slowly. "She wanted an army of us. Something a little more dynamic and deadly than her clones."
Identical faces again and again trundled down the hallway. "Are they twins?" Stevie asked. "Not twins. The . . . when there's more than two babies?"
"Triplets," Connor offered. "That's three, quadruplets is four, quintuplets is five. It's all out of Latin after twins," he explained. "Tri means three, quad means four, quin is five."
"They're not quintuplets or sextuplets," Wendy said from across and down. "They're not even human. I've seen her talking to them. It's like they're robots or something."
"Some sort of mutant clone," put in Jim. "Like in the comics."
Connor nodded, even though some of the others couldn't see him. "I think that's right. I think they're not machines or cyborgs or anything mechanical. I think they're totally biological, just . . . built to be nothing but guards."
"I'd much rather they were clockwork men," Ursula admitted. "If they were purely a matter of clockwork and electricity I could feel much less like I ought to be able to get through to a human sentiment beneath."
"They're too horrible to be human," Bess said.
As the memory freed itself from being so long buried, Stephen's jaw dropped. "The soldier in the Silurian."
"The Cleaners," Connor agreed. "Helen's mutant clones. I didn't recognise the one in the shopping centre. I just thought I'd maybe scented him before. I go to that one a lot."
"God, I hadn't thought about them in so long," Stephen said. "I just . . . when all the psychologists had done with convincing me it was all a dream, I just . . . pushed it away."
He was still slumped in his chair, not wanting to push Connor's buttons until he was recovered enough and back on something to deal with his off-kilter brain chemistry. "Stop it. You were five, you can't be expected to remember everything from when you were five, and stop slumping like that, it's silly that you're trying to play beta to me. We'll figure it out, but you don't have to, Steve . . . Stephen."
Straightening up at once helped, in fact. "Sorry. It's just that, between Lester and Cutter, you were getting a bit . . ."
As he shrugged, leaving them to fill in the rest of the sentence, Abby smirked at Cutter. "I told you."
"Yes, yes," Cutter waved an irritable hand at Abby. "What does all this . . ." he looked aggravated as he searched for the right words.
"Pack pecking order stuff?" Connor offered with a grin. "What does it mean? Nothing, really, if I can just get my head on straight." He nodded at Abby. "Thanks, by the way. For telling Cutter not to try staring me down."
"I do not," Cutter sputtered.
Stephen laughed. "You do, Nick. I play beta to you most of the time, not just because I'm your assistant, but because of that habit you have of not realising you're playing dominance games with people."
"It's in the body language," Abby piped up. "You set your shoulders and look people in the eye, which in most species with forward-facing eyes is a challenge."
Nick, clearly wanting to get off the topic of his native obstinacy, said, "So, you think that Stephen slept with Helen because there's some sort of genetic predisposition?"
"No," Stephen said regretfully. "I believed her when I shouldn't have because of that, because something sets off a feeling I ought to do as she says, but no. I slept with her originally, because she's a very attractive woman who told me your marriage was effectively over."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Lester asked Connor. "Why keep it a secret?"
Connor sighed, beginning to look distressed. "Because I was frightened," he said pleadingly. "Because I was terrified I'd find myself locked away again, this time so that you could have the ARC's scientists try to take me apart and find out how I ticked. I didn't know if the Helen at the mosasaur anomalies was from far enough along her own timeline to have already done those things." He shook his head. "Then when the future predators showed up, I knew it was her-"
"How?" Cutter demanded.
"Because she made them," Connor told him. "I'd never seen them before, but I didn't have to. They smell like . . . they smell like what she did to the rest of us. Whatever compounds she used on us, she also used on them. They move like we do, like I do."
Lester looked irate. "You mean she brought those things with her deliberately?"
"She might have been running scared," Cutter suggested.
"No," Stephen found himself saying with Connor. "She wasn't."
"Helen never liked to show nerves," Cutter said.
Connor was shaking his head. "That day at the zoo, when I knew something weird had come through, I went partly off the meds. She didn't smell scared," he said, getting weird looks from Cutter and Jenny. Abby nodded and Lester's face was a study of concentration and annoyance, however. Connor was concentrating, his eyes slitted as he thought back to impressions that had no words because humans didn't need words for them. "She was . . ."
Stephen thought back. Thought of Helen leaning casually against the tree with her knife and apple, the way that Connor had been warily moving and let the images drift over his mind. Sometimes, because he hadn't been changed like Connor, he'd get an impression that would only come across in a strange flash of thought, an association that made no real sense.
Black widow spiders.
"Excited," he said suddenly.
Connor's head came up and he shot a raised eyebrow at Stephen. "Excited like . . . ?" The abortive gesture in Abby's direction and back again nearly made Stephen laugh. "No taking the mick right now," he said in exasperation. "Make fun of me over it later."
"Fair," Stephen nodded. "Yes, like that."
"Like what?" Cutter demanded impatiently.
"She was . . ." Jenny had picked up on that subtext, but clearly had enough prudery not to say it.
Lester sighed. "Why is everything with that woman about sex?"
"Bet she was always a nymphomaniac," Connor muttered.
Abby looked sick. "She was excited about the future predators?"
"She was excited about seeing what they could do," Connor corrected her. "She was always like that when she was watching us, the teenagers, in her little circus."
Lester abruptly stood. "I want a full report on this compound of hers, but in the meanwhile, I believe I can get the Minister to have her put on every possible watchlist. Detain if possible, shoot if necessary."
Stephen felt himself flinch, but it was almost reflex rather than true emotion. Because if Helen was the notorious she, he wanted her locked away, hurt, dead, something. Anything for the fear, the nightmares, the deaths he'd seen that were at the hands of her clones, her monsters and the monsters she'd made those children into. Because while at five the teens had seemed ever so grown up, had seemed like adults to him then, now that he was thirty-two, he could look back and feel sick on behalf of the older ones, not even adults yet, and what had been done to them.
"Good," Connor said savagely.
Lester turned, heading for the door, Jenny, looking rather discombobulated by the whole thing trailed after him. "I'd best be getting on with arranging for her to be dealt with." He paused in the door. "And Connor?"
"Yes?"
"There will be no experimentation on you beyond what is necessary for your treatment and establishing a new baseline for the ARC's medics to work from," Lester informed him, something that looked like a remarkable facsimile of compassion on his face.
Connor stared hard at the man a moment, then sighed, nodded, and said, "Thank you."
Lester nodded back and left.
Once he was gone, Connor sagged, paling, and whined at the back of his throat. Stephen bolted to his feet, then onto the bed next to Connor, who put his head in Stephen's lap with a sigh. "I can't wait until I get something for this. I bloody hate instinct."
"You were putting up a front the whole time?" Abby asked, aghast. "Connor! If you're hurt-"
"I know, I know," Connor groaned. "But it's like I can't show weakness in front of him. Something in m'brain keeps thinking he'll want to put me down with prejudice if I do."
Stephen just concentrated on carding his fingers through Connor's hair, reassuring Connor that he wasn't alone, and that someone would stand watch while he slept. Connor sighed and nuzzled at Stephen, garnering a very strange look from Cutter, then relaxed into a doze almost immediately. "No need to worry," he murmured, bending over so his lips were just brushing against the side of Connor's head. "I'm right here, and if I have to leave, I'll make sure Abby or Cutter's here instead."
"Jus' Abby," Connor mumbled back. "'S'nice. Smells like Rex and protokiwis."
Stephen grinned. "That's a compliment, if you're wondering," he said to Abby.
"The nurses are going to think you're sleeping together, you know," Cutter told him.
It didn't matter, Stephen thought as he shrugged. What mattered was that Connor be better enough that he could stop being worn out simply by sitting up and alert. "Then they will." He looked at Nick seriously. "Nick, this isn't something that I can fob off and pretend didn't happen. Connor saved my life. He saved the lives of a dozen children and teenagers. He's half the reason I chose to be who I am today."
Nick's look was oddly unreadable, but he just said, "You should get some rest too, Stephen."
"I will," he replied. "You mind closing the door on the way out?"
"No problem," Abby said.
Once they'd left Stephen stared into the middle distance, finally taking the time to go over in his own mind everything that happened to him in those terrible months he was trapped in the past. He'd spent so long convincing himself it wasn't real, that Connor hadn't been real, then that Connor Temple wasn't the Connor, now that the worst of the crisis was over, the shock was setting in. He tried to control the shaking, not wanting to wake Connor, not wanting to crack in a hospital where anyone could come in at any time.
The soft rumbling and vibration under his hands brought him out of it, and he looked down to see Connor's dark eyes staring at him in concern.
"I just . . . when I'm scared, I like to pet our cat, Sher Khan. Daddy named him that because he looks like a tiger," Stevie confessed as the coelophyses circled the tree below, frustrated by their prey's refusal to leave its refuge. "I pet him and he purrs and I feel better."
Connor smiled sadly at him. "I'm sorry that I'm fresh out of kitty-cats, Stevie," he said. Then he suddenly tilted his head a little. "Let me see. You said I growled before, yeah?"
"Yeah. It was sort of scary," Stevie told him, feeling awful, because Connor was brilliant and had kicked the giant scary lizard in the head, even when he'd been all weird and cave-man-y. He shouldn't think that Connor was scary.
But suddenly, a funny rumbly sound came out of Connor's chest, one that was deeper and a bit louder than Sher Khan's purring, but it was purring. And he curled up on Connor's lap, and let the purring drown out the scary snapping and growling from below.
"I'm a little old for kitty-cat comfort, don't you think?" he asked, laughing.
Connor smirked. "Made you laugh."
It was so ridiculous that Stephen threw his head back, relaxing into the first real laughter he'd had since Nick had knocked out that actor, thinking he was a real neanderthal. "Thank you."
"Now stop thinking so hard, Stephen. This doesn't change anything. I'm still a geek, I'm still the Star Wars fan you take the mickey about and I still get into arguments with Abby about whether or not I get to use the microwave to heat up my boxers in winter," Connor said sternly with that smile still playing around the edges of his mouth.
"Connor?"
"Yeah?"
"I really didn't need to know that last one."
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Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything anyone recognises and I'm not making any money from it.
Rating: R
Summary: When time travel's involved, you never know when you'll meet up with old friends.
Notes: And the backstory continues. I've moved the rating up to R because, well, there's horribleness here I wasn't quite sure I was going to go into detail on, but I did. So . . . higher rating, just in case.
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Stephen woke to Connor staring at him from inches away. He started, then shook his head, smiling in amusement. By the time he and Connor had parted ways all those years before, he'd actually got used to Connor doing that. The way Connor had explained it to him, once he'd regained enough coherency to do so, was that the instincts he ran on were no longer human, but a mixture of the cocktail of genetic alterations based on various animals. It meant that there were polite behaviours he'd had to fake the whole time, and on thinking about it now, Stephen wondered if Connor had been forced to relearn human social behaviours when he'd got home, partially accounting for his strange behaviour as an adult.
Seeing that he was awake, Connor grinned happily and playfully nuzzled Stephen. A muffled thud from the door brought both their attention to it, and Connor's face immediately darkened. "Hey," he said, petting Connor like a cat. Connor's hackles lowered, so to speak, but he still looked suspicious. A moment later, Abby and Cutter walked into the room bearing a tray. "Tell me that's not hospital food," Stephen said to them.
Connor's eyes narrowed and he watched the interplay with great care. Then he edged over toward Abby, his nostrils flaring. Abby and Nick were both watching him cautiously now, and Stephen waited, because as much as he trusted Connor with his life, he really had no idea how Connor would react to people he didn't recognise from when he was fifteen. "No," Abby told Stephen as she eyed Connor. "There's an italian place nearby, and we didn't know how Connor'd be, so I got peanut butter sandwiches for Connor. They're his favourite."
As the suspicion eased away on Connor's face regarding Abby, he approached Nick, staring at him very hard. Abby's jaw dropped. "Does he think he's a wolf or something? He's playing dominance games with Cutter."
"Well, since right now he could tear Nick limb from limb without breaking a sweat, and I've seen it happen," Stephen said trying not to laugh, "I expect he might have a bit of a point on a purely primitive biggest stick sort of way." Connor's nostrils flared again, then suddenly his eyes lit up. Stephen felt himself relax. "Oh good. I'd hoped he'd recognise you both as part of the pack, but I didn't know how well that part of him had been working over the last year and a bit."
"Pack?" Abby asked as Connor bounded over to her and nuzzled at her. "Does that . . . I looked at the notes. Does that mean he's got, sort of, canine or feline instincts?"
"I don't exactly know," Stephen admitted. "This is all from after Connor got back to, and I quote, 'sort of normalish'," he told them. Then he sat on the floor, pulling the tray over and tossing Connor the sandwiches. Connor tore into them happily, offering bits to Abby, Stephen and Nick, but trying to sort of mother Stephen until Stephen started eating his pasta. "He had trouble then, sort of running with human socialisation but with animal instincts. We didn't know at that point, and I still don't," he told Abby pointedly, "What animals had gone into this. So, Connor was trying to verbalise something without a framework."
When Connor offered her another bit of sandwich, Abby gravely considered it, then accepted it. "So, he's trying to bond with us like packmates," she said, her face set in concentration as she looked at what Connor was doing, "And right now," she told Cutter rather severely, around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly, while Stephen tossed Connor a bit of ravioli, "He's doing what he feels is the polite thing, and offering the other pack members a share of the food."
Nick sighed and took the sandwich piece, eating it with a look on his face as though he was eating dirt. Connor looked chastened. "How did you escape?" he asked Stephen.
"Well, all along Connor had kept track of guard shift changes and what they did to get the doors open, how the doors opened and what little he could see when they dragged him off to what he called the gladitorial pit," Stephen said. Connor had snuggled up to Abby, who had clearly decided to treat Connor like a big puppy, and was stroking his hair while she listened, clearly parsing through his actions with a behaviourist's eye. "But he also noticed, and I think this is what saved us both, that the food we were getting, and the bowls were very specifically directed at one or the other of us, was different. It tasted even worse, but he'd try to distract the guards and mix them together, to see if he could defray the effects."
"So they weren't just using some sort of shots," Nick said speculatively, "They were quite possibly doing something to the food." He frowned in concentration.
Stephen nodded. "We didn't know for certain, of course, but I think so, because the other teens got more and more short-tempered as time passed. I think I was the only one who didn't get hit."
Abby's breath hissed sharply at that. "They were hitting the younger ones?"
"You have to understand," Stephen told her, wanted them both to not judge too quickly, "Their brain chemistries were off. Or wrong."
"You bloody brat!"
The slap echoed in the hall, and Connor snapped, "Jim! Get ahold of yourself! It's the drugs!"
"Jesus, I . . . Bernie, I'm sorry. I didn't . . . God, why?" The last was a plea to a higher power that wasn't answering.
Bernie's soft voice, proud Newfie, whatever that meant, said, "It's okay Jim. I know you don't mean to."
Connor whirled, a roar a fury erupting out of the teen as he buried a fist in the wall. His knuckles came away bloody, but a small spiderweb of cracks radiated from the point of contact. His eyes focussed on that, suddenly concentrating.
"I think that was when he got his idea for escape." Stephen told them. "He'd hit the wall before, but it was the first time he'd caused damage. He was getting stronger." Connor sat up, looking at him, then was at his side in a moment, maybe having heard the shaky undertones to Stephen's voice. He crouched beside his former charge, then wrapped a comforting arm around Stephen's shoulders. "But everyone else was getting worse."
"Worse?" Nick asked. He looked and sounded shaken. "Worse how? How much worse if these kids were being made hyper-aggressive?"
"It happened to Quinn and Fatima first," Stephen said bleakly. It had been horrible. Because it was his first real experience with death. Not the way the goldfish was found one day, belly up, and his dad had explained about things sometimes going to sleep and never waking up again, not even the knowledge that Jackie down the hallway wasn't coming back because her teenager Elsie wasn't coming back. "They'd taken Quinn for another round with the scientists, and when she came back she was . . . worse. Edgier." It had haunted his nightmares for years, still did, and he couldn't help but lean into Connor's steadfast presence.
They bolted awake to screams, to the sound of Will and Donnell shouting at Quinn to stop, pleading with her. An awful tearing sound seemed to make the whole world stop, even around the snarling coming from the end of the line of cells. Sobbing could be heard and sharp voices telling the younger ones to look away.
Quinn was dragged past them by two of the heavyset soldiers. Connor tried to stop Stevie from seeing, but he had to know and managed to squirm enough to see around Connor. Quinn was coated in blood, enough to make her arms slick and hard to hold as she tried to bite her captors, and behind her a guard carried a bag, out of which poked a bit of dark hair, still in the ribboned braids Quinn had done the little girl's hair up in. The ribbons, supposed to be pink, had been stained red, too.
"One by one," Stephen told them, "They'd break. Connor was the only one who hadn't so much as hit me, and I couldn't . . . I had to believe he was stronger than that, because it was . . . terrifying."
Abby was crying. "Oh, Stephen. And Connor was . . . they were trying to make him like that?"
"Christ," Nick managed to rasp out.
"Then they took him, and he was . . . angry. Tense. For the first time I really thought he'd hurt me," Stephen confessed. Because Quinn had been the sweetest girl until they'd done what they'd done to her. "But he just told me that I'd know when, and to run straight, take the last left, then straight again and not to stop for anything." Connor whined anxiously, and Stephen ran a hand over Connor's head to soothe him.
Hours passed and Connor was pacing, the other children funereally silent. They all knew what was coming, and Stevie could hear the sniffles of the younger ones. Just as suddenly though, the wait was over. Because the soldiers were there, and Connor hadn't done anything to him, merely sat in the corner, his fingers laced into his hair, muttering to himself. As the door cracked open, though, he exploded into motion.
The two soldiers went flying back, their machine guns clattering down the hall. Stevie knew that this was what Connor had meant and ran for the door. Connor, preoccupied with one soldier, couldn't stop the other from grabbing at Stevie. But the five-year-old had had enough himself, and kicked the other man as hard as he could, getting the grip to loosen, then dove unexpectedly for the pistol at the man's hip, got it, and took off running the way Connor had told him to.
He was nearly to the door when suddenly Connor was there, scooping him up and his longer legs carrying them both out of the compound and into the outdoors. A curtain wall rose in front of them, but Connor seemed to barely notice it as he scrambled up it one-handed, vaulting and landing from a twenty-foot drop as easily as stepping off the pavement an onto the street. They whipped through the strange forest, finally coming to rest what felt like miles and miles from where they'd started.
"Wow! Connor! We're safe!" he'd exclaimed excitedly. They'd got away. Now it was only a matter of time before they got home and got help for everyone.
His only response was Connor's uncomprehending eyes and an inhuman-sounding growl.
"I was pretty sure then I'd just managed to escape only to finally have Connor turn like Quinn and the others," Stephen admitted.
Connor's voice, sounding disused and raspy spoke. "You were lucky. I had. I'm pretty sure I ate something I'd ripped off one of the guards."
They turned to look, and Connor looked back at them, pale, nauseated and sick at heart.
"Connor!" Abby exclaimed and threw herself at him, hugging him. For a moment he devoted his attention to holding her and, Stephen could see, taking in her scent. "Were you sniffing me?" she asked curiously.
He flushed. "Er . . . yeah. It's sort of hard not to," he told her. "I mean, I just . . ."
She gave him an understanding look. "I saw your notes," she told him. "Stephen suggested we see if there were something the ARC specialists could come up with to help."
"Connor," Nick interrupted. "I know this might have been . . . hard, but why didn't you . . . why wouldn't you say anything?"
"You mean before, when we didn't know for sure we could trust Lester? To Leek?" Connor's eyes began to snap and he advanced on Nick. "Or just when-"
Stephen interposed himself between them. "Don't do this, Connor."
"He's not . . ." Stephen saw the struggle Connor was going through, his human intellect warring with the instinct to take on the pack's alpha. "I . . ."
Unlike Cutter, who was angrily meeting Connor's eyes and pushing all his buttons, Abby saw what was going on. "And we'll be going," she said hastily. "I'm sure Jenny and Lester'll be glad to hear you're better now." And with that, she manhandled Cutter out the door. Just before it slammed shut, the sound of a lecture about wolf pecking orders came drifting back.
Connor relaxed at once. "I'm sorry," he said miserably. "When I'm by myself I can tell what I'm supposed to be doing, but he just . . ."
"It's alright, Connor," Stephen said. Then he braced himself to confess something. "I know how that feels."
"How can you?" Connor snapped, his eyes distressed. "No one ever did anything to you, I made sure of it. Even the food . . ." He trailed off. "The food. You . . ." the realisation seemed to seep through him. "That's why you're so good."
Stephen nodded. "I wasn't as badly off as you," he said. "How could I be? But sometimes I know I'm hearing and seeing things no one else can. I shouldn't be able to do some of the things I do. And-"
"You always know just the right thing to calm me down," Connor realised. "It's not a lucky guess, it's instinct." Stephen sank to the floor and watched as Connor sighed and shed the delicate balancing act he'd been doing, pretending to be normal, and let Connor drape himself protectively over his lap. From the outside, it might have looked romantic, and Stephen had no doubt that rumours would run rife in no time, but instincts he'd long suppressed just sighed over his alpha being back. Cutter was the team leader, but some small part of Stephen had accepted Connor as his pack alpha.
With Connor no longer violent and irrational by normal standards, they were quickly transferred to another room, however. A private room, but one with a door they could close and open from the inside at will, and Connor let the nurses change his dressings and cluck over the bullet holes, which were closing up far faster than would be expected if Connor had been all he appeared to be. When they were finally alone again, Stephen broached the topic he knew he'd have to. "You know that first day in class? I recognised you, and then you managed that spectacular fall and I was sure it was just coincidence."
"I thought you were familiar," Connor admitted, "But, well, you're not as short as you were then, for one." He grinned.
"I'd hope so," Stephen told him dryly. "I have to say, there had to have been less painful ways for you to pretend you weren't a . . ." he searched for a word that was accurate, but wasn't hurtful.
"A mutant," Connor said placidly. "Like the X-Men. Or maybe the Hulk, since that was done to him."
"Thinking of giving Hugh Jackman a run for his money?" Stephen asked.
Another happy grin, "That could work." Then he sobered. "But I wasn't faking, Steve." He cut himself off sharply before he added the extra syllable. Stephen was grateful for the restraint. "Sorry."
"It's okay."
"I wasn't faking," he started again, "Because the stuff I took to amplify my seratonin and dopamine levels and even out everything else so I could cope with things, it messes with your equilibrium and stuff."
He groaned. "All this time I couldn't tell if it was you," Stephen told him, "Precisely because of those things. I mean, you'd never have lost track of Rex or mistaken a mascot for a real cat, but there you were."
Connor winced. "I'd overdosed that day," he admitted. "I was thinking I'd be spending the whole day in the ARC, having to stare at the ADD and not break Leek's skeevy little neck for being a skeevy little weasel."
"You could tell?" Stephen asked. "That he was behind things?"
"Nah," Connor told him. "I just knew he was up to something and that I couldn't trust him."
And then Jenny and Lester were in the doorway, and if Stephen hadn't known Lester was a bloodless beaurocrat, he might have thought the man looked tired and saddened by the turn of events. "I do wish you had said something," Lester said. "It might have saved us all a great deal of trouble with things."
"Or," Connor countered, his hackles rising, "I might've wound up trapped in some lab for the rest of my life being pinned down by people wanting to know what made me tick, or if I was just mad."
"Don't be ridiculous," Jenny said. "That would never have happened."
"Yes," Lester said with something that might have passed for an anemic little smile, "Most likely you would have had the run of the ARC, so that we could utilise your skills to their fullest potential." He turned to Stephen. "So, the unusual markers in your bloodwork, that match the ones in the bloodwork Mr. Temple has finally deigned to give us, they wouldn't happen to indicate a similar set of . . . issues to his?"
His head snapped up and his eyes narrowed at Lester. "You have a point?" He felt Connor tensing beside him, readying himself to do anything he'd need to in order to protect Stephen. Stephen very deliberately forced himself to relax, putting a hand on Connor's shoulder. "Don't. Please."
Jenny was looking a tad gormless, which made her much less irritatingly snide, and Lester had that infernal eyebrow raised at them. "I simply wondered if your feat the other day of singlehandedly capturing that scorpion rampaging about the beach had anything to do with it."
"Scorpion?" Connor asked interestedly. "You mean from the Silurian?"
"It's nothing," Stephen waved it off. "Just something Connor showed me once with a coelophysis."
"Meaning?" Jenny demanded impatiently.
Stephen grinned at Connor. "It's just a matter of timing," they chorused.
"Can I take this to mean that you will, perhaps, begin to demonstrate Mr. Hart's particular skill set, should an effective treatment balancing your brain chemistry be found?" Lester asked.
The strain of trying to act like he was normal began to tell, and Connor said offhandedly, "Oh, hardly. I still can't shoot any better. I just know how to kill things with my bare hands and a rock."
Stephen shot him a reproving look, which he got away with only by sliding a little lower where he sat and tilting his head to bare his throat in submission. Once Connor was closer to normal, they'd hash things out between them, because like hell was he playing beta to Connor Temple, but this wasn't the place or time. Connor took the message, then shot him an amused look, one which was echoed by Lester. Damn the man for being so bloody intelligent. But Connor relented and let it go. "I can see this will be an interesting readjustment period for us all," Lester told them. "I would be rather interested, however, in any details about this compound Cutter informs me you were both kept at."
"Connor would be the better one to ask," Stephen admitted. "Not only was I only five at the time, but he spent a lot of time making sure I didn't see things."
"You would have been mentally scarred for life," Connor told him. "You don't want to have seen what happened to Jackie or Will. You don't."
"Nonetheless," Lester said, "If there's some madman running about kidnapping children, I'd rather be informed of it in the hopes of stopping him."
"Her," the pair chorused.
Lester's attention sharpened. "Her?"
"I don't know," Stephen said. "But Connor always talked about 'her' and 'she'."
"And?" Lester asked.
Abby and Cutter arrived at the door just then. "And what?" Nick asked.
"And who's the woman behind the Triassic compound," Stephen told them. "Connor?"
Connor sighed, looked around, his gaze fleetingly and worriedly crossing both Stephen and Cutter's faces, before he softly admitted. "Helen Cutter."
"No," Cutter said, shaking his head. "I know Helen's gone a little . . . off. But she'd never-"
"She watched us fight and she watched us die," Connor said baldly. "I remember seeing her there. I remember seeing Elsie too tired to do any more and that . . ." he searched for a word.
"I think," Stephen said, feeling even worse than he already had for being suckered in by Helen, "The word you're looking for is the one Jessalyn used. 'Bitch'."
Connor smiled. "Jessalyn was brilliant, even if she did swear like a sailor."
Then Stephen sighed. "I knew you knew."
"I did," Connor said. "I just . . . I can't understand . . . actually, no. I can. There's a reason I didn't just lose my mind that day when you," he nodded at Lester, "Sent the SFs in after her. I saw her and I knew it was her. I don't know if it was aversion therapy or something she managed to write into the mutations, but whatever it is, I'm just . . . I can't . . . it's atavistic fear," he came out with. "Mixed with a sick sort of attraction."
Stephen nodded slowly. "You know, that . . . I didn't know it was her, but that . . . it describes it perfectly."
Abby looked at them, eyeing them both very carefully. "You . . . you ate the food that was supposed to go to Connor," Abby said as she stared at Stephen. "And it's affected you." They both nodded silently at her. She shook it off and said, "You think she did something, some sort of pheromone thing or other that could be used as a . . . a failsafe maybe?" she offered.
"That would make sense," Connor said slowly. "She wanted an army of us. Something a little more dynamic and deadly than her clones."
Identical faces again and again trundled down the hallway. "Are they twins?" Stevie asked. "Not twins. The . . . when there's more than two babies?"
"Triplets," Connor offered. "That's three, quadruplets is four, quintuplets is five. It's all out of Latin after twins," he explained. "Tri means three, quad means four, quin is five."
"They're not quintuplets or sextuplets," Wendy said from across and down. "They're not even human. I've seen her talking to them. It's like they're robots or something."
"Some sort of mutant clone," put in Jim. "Like in the comics."
Connor nodded, even though some of the others couldn't see him. "I think that's right. I think they're not machines or cyborgs or anything mechanical. I think they're totally biological, just . . . built to be nothing but guards."
"I'd much rather they were clockwork men," Ursula admitted. "If they were purely a matter of clockwork and electricity I could feel much less like I ought to be able to get through to a human sentiment beneath."
"They're too horrible to be human," Bess said.
As the memory freed itself from being so long buried, Stephen's jaw dropped. "The soldier in the Silurian."
"The Cleaners," Connor agreed. "Helen's mutant clones. I didn't recognise the one in the shopping centre. I just thought I'd maybe scented him before. I go to that one a lot."
"God, I hadn't thought about them in so long," Stephen said. "I just . . . when all the psychologists had done with convincing me it was all a dream, I just . . . pushed it away."
He was still slumped in his chair, not wanting to push Connor's buttons until he was recovered enough and back on something to deal with his off-kilter brain chemistry. "Stop it. You were five, you can't be expected to remember everything from when you were five, and stop slumping like that, it's silly that you're trying to play beta to me. We'll figure it out, but you don't have to, Steve . . . Stephen."
Straightening up at once helped, in fact. "Sorry. It's just that, between Lester and Cutter, you were getting a bit . . ."
As he shrugged, leaving them to fill in the rest of the sentence, Abby smirked at Cutter. "I told you."
"Yes, yes," Cutter waved an irritable hand at Abby. "What does all this . . ." he looked aggravated as he searched for the right words.
"Pack pecking order stuff?" Connor offered with a grin. "What does it mean? Nothing, really, if I can just get my head on straight." He nodded at Abby. "Thanks, by the way. For telling Cutter not to try staring me down."
"I do not," Cutter sputtered.
Stephen laughed. "You do, Nick. I play beta to you most of the time, not just because I'm your assistant, but because of that habit you have of not realising you're playing dominance games with people."
"It's in the body language," Abby piped up. "You set your shoulders and look people in the eye, which in most species with forward-facing eyes is a challenge."
Nick, clearly wanting to get off the topic of his native obstinacy, said, "So, you think that Stephen slept with Helen because there's some sort of genetic predisposition?"
"No," Stephen said regretfully. "I believed her when I shouldn't have because of that, because something sets off a feeling I ought to do as she says, but no. I slept with her originally, because she's a very attractive woman who told me your marriage was effectively over."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Lester asked Connor. "Why keep it a secret?"
Connor sighed, beginning to look distressed. "Because I was frightened," he said pleadingly. "Because I was terrified I'd find myself locked away again, this time so that you could have the ARC's scientists try to take me apart and find out how I ticked. I didn't know if the Helen at the mosasaur anomalies was from far enough along her own timeline to have already done those things." He shook his head. "Then when the future predators showed up, I knew it was her-"
"How?" Cutter demanded.
"Because she made them," Connor told him. "I'd never seen them before, but I didn't have to. They smell like . . . they smell like what she did to the rest of us. Whatever compounds she used on us, she also used on them. They move like we do, like I do."
Lester looked irate. "You mean she brought those things with her deliberately?"
"She might have been running scared," Cutter suggested.
"No," Stephen found himself saying with Connor. "She wasn't."
"Helen never liked to show nerves," Cutter said.
Connor was shaking his head. "That day at the zoo, when I knew something weird had come through, I went partly off the meds. She didn't smell scared," he said, getting weird looks from Cutter and Jenny. Abby nodded and Lester's face was a study of concentration and annoyance, however. Connor was concentrating, his eyes slitted as he thought back to impressions that had no words because humans didn't need words for them. "She was . . ."
Stephen thought back. Thought of Helen leaning casually against the tree with her knife and apple, the way that Connor had been warily moving and let the images drift over his mind. Sometimes, because he hadn't been changed like Connor, he'd get an impression that would only come across in a strange flash of thought, an association that made no real sense.
Black widow spiders.
"Excited," he said suddenly.
Connor's head came up and he shot a raised eyebrow at Stephen. "Excited like . . . ?" The abortive gesture in Abby's direction and back again nearly made Stephen laugh. "No taking the mick right now," he said in exasperation. "Make fun of me over it later."
"Fair," Stephen nodded. "Yes, like that."
"Like what?" Cutter demanded impatiently.
"She was . . ." Jenny had picked up on that subtext, but clearly had enough prudery not to say it.
Lester sighed. "Why is everything with that woman about sex?"
"Bet she was always a nymphomaniac," Connor muttered.
Abby looked sick. "She was excited about the future predators?"
"She was excited about seeing what they could do," Connor corrected her. "She was always like that when she was watching us, the teenagers, in her little circus."
Lester abruptly stood. "I want a full report on this compound of hers, but in the meanwhile, I believe I can get the Minister to have her put on every possible watchlist. Detain if possible, shoot if necessary."
Stephen felt himself flinch, but it was almost reflex rather than true emotion. Because if Helen was the notorious she, he wanted her locked away, hurt, dead, something. Anything for the fear, the nightmares, the deaths he'd seen that were at the hands of her clones, her monsters and the monsters she'd made those children into. Because while at five the teens had seemed ever so grown up, had seemed like adults to him then, now that he was thirty-two, he could look back and feel sick on behalf of the older ones, not even adults yet, and what had been done to them.
"Good," Connor said savagely.
Lester turned, heading for the door, Jenny, looking rather discombobulated by the whole thing trailed after him. "I'd best be getting on with arranging for her to be dealt with." He paused in the door. "And Connor?"
"Yes?"
"There will be no experimentation on you beyond what is necessary for your treatment and establishing a new baseline for the ARC's medics to work from," Lester informed him, something that looked like a remarkable facsimile of compassion on his face.
Connor stared hard at the man a moment, then sighed, nodded, and said, "Thank you."
Lester nodded back and left.
Once he was gone, Connor sagged, paling, and whined at the back of his throat. Stephen bolted to his feet, then onto the bed next to Connor, who put his head in Stephen's lap with a sigh. "I can't wait until I get something for this. I bloody hate instinct."
"You were putting up a front the whole time?" Abby asked, aghast. "Connor! If you're hurt-"
"I know, I know," Connor groaned. "But it's like I can't show weakness in front of him. Something in m'brain keeps thinking he'll want to put me down with prejudice if I do."
Stephen just concentrated on carding his fingers through Connor's hair, reassuring Connor that he wasn't alone, and that someone would stand watch while he slept. Connor sighed and nuzzled at Stephen, garnering a very strange look from Cutter, then relaxed into a doze almost immediately. "No need to worry," he murmured, bending over so his lips were just brushing against the side of Connor's head. "I'm right here, and if I have to leave, I'll make sure Abby or Cutter's here instead."
"Jus' Abby," Connor mumbled back. "'S'nice. Smells like Rex and protokiwis."
Stephen grinned. "That's a compliment, if you're wondering," he said to Abby.
"The nurses are going to think you're sleeping together, you know," Cutter told him.
It didn't matter, Stephen thought as he shrugged. What mattered was that Connor be better enough that he could stop being worn out simply by sitting up and alert. "Then they will." He looked at Nick seriously. "Nick, this isn't something that I can fob off and pretend didn't happen. Connor saved my life. He saved the lives of a dozen children and teenagers. He's half the reason I chose to be who I am today."
Nick's look was oddly unreadable, but he just said, "You should get some rest too, Stephen."
"I will," he replied. "You mind closing the door on the way out?"
"No problem," Abby said.
Once they'd left Stephen stared into the middle distance, finally taking the time to go over in his own mind everything that happened to him in those terrible months he was trapped in the past. He'd spent so long convincing himself it wasn't real, that Connor hadn't been real, then that Connor Temple wasn't the Connor, now that the worst of the crisis was over, the shock was setting in. He tried to control the shaking, not wanting to wake Connor, not wanting to crack in a hospital where anyone could come in at any time.
The soft rumbling and vibration under his hands brought him out of it, and he looked down to see Connor's dark eyes staring at him in concern.
"I just . . . when I'm scared, I like to pet our cat, Sher Khan. Daddy named him that because he looks like a tiger," Stevie confessed as the coelophyses circled the tree below, frustrated by their prey's refusal to leave its refuge. "I pet him and he purrs and I feel better."
Connor smiled sadly at him. "I'm sorry that I'm fresh out of kitty-cats, Stevie," he said. Then he suddenly tilted his head a little. "Let me see. You said I growled before, yeah?"
"Yeah. It was sort of scary," Stevie told him, feeling awful, because Connor was brilliant and had kicked the giant scary lizard in the head, even when he'd been all weird and cave-man-y. He shouldn't think that Connor was scary.
But suddenly, a funny rumbly sound came out of Connor's chest, one that was deeper and a bit louder than Sher Khan's purring, but it was purring. And he curled up on Connor's lap, and let the purring drown out the scary snapping and growling from below.
"I'm a little old for kitty-cat comfort, don't you think?" he asked, laughing.
Connor smirked. "Made you laugh."
It was so ridiculous that Stephen threw his head back, relaxing into the first real laughter he'd had since Nick had knocked out that actor, thinking he was a real neanderthal. "Thank you."
"Now stop thinking so hard, Stephen. This doesn't change anything. I'm still a geek, I'm still the Star Wars fan you take the mickey about and I still get into arguments with Abby about whether or not I get to use the microwave to heat up my boxers in winter," Connor said sternly with that smile still playing around the edges of his mouth.
"Connor?"
"Yeah?"
"I really didn't need to know that last one."
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