Primeval Fic: Time is a Slow Sword
Title: Time is a Slow Sword
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: A random Primeval ficlet. Unbeta’ed and not Brit-proofed. Spoilers up through mid season three, so it deals with various canon character deaths.
Summary: Ignoring history means sacrificing the future. Of all people, Nick knows better.
-o-
Time is a slow sword that can pierce any armor
As we drown our hearts hiding from the ghost of one another
-Don’t Hold Back (Full On) by The Normals
-o-
Nick has always said that it’s the pieces that don’t fit that make the past worth studying.
It’s that motivation that propels Nick to spend his life digging into history. And he does it with a flourish. He can list all the major geological eras and identify a multitude of obscure ancient species at a glance. He’s dedicated his life to making sense of the past, making the pieces that don’t fit parse.
So really, it’s a little ironic that it’s his own past that he doesn’t want to deal with at all.
Helen. Stephen. Their betrayals. Nick’s failure to both of them.
Nick knows better than to let that slide. Ignoring history means sacrificing the future. Of all people, he knows better.
-o-
Sometimes, Nick thinks about how it could have been different. He thinks he should have seen it coming.
Helen was always ambitious. She conquered the mysteries of the past and present; the future was her only boundary left to break. He should have known that he could never hold her, not with a stable job and a comfortable house. Not even with a loving marriage.
If he’d tried, maybe he could have stopped her. Maybe if he’d gone with her. Maybe if he’d asked her to stay. Maybe if he’d never fallen in love with her at all. Maybe then she wouldn’t be a monster.
But she is. She flits in and out of the past and present and uses anyone to get what she wants. She taunts him with their wedding vows and leaves the one person who believed in her to die for it.
Some monsters don’t know better.
Some do.
Looking to the past can answer questions but it can’t fix problems. That doesn’t seem to stop Nick, though, tackling one monster at a time. He tries not to think about the way he fails when it counts; he hopes it’s still enough.
He thinks of the day he married Helen and hopes it’s enough.
-o-
He’s a man of science. Looking at the facts and forming hypotheses is totally natural.
If he had talked it out when Stephen tried.
If he had told Stephen everything Helen had done.
If he had trusted Stephen’s judgment just once.
If he had known to save his punch for the time it really mattered.
But a hypothesis must be tested and he has no way of knowing the results of such theories.
-o-
Helen’s his wife.
Stephen was his friend.
It seems funny that he wants another chance to make things right with Stephen, but the further along this gets, the more he wishes that he never met Helen at all.
-o-
Sometimes, all Nick sees are moments. Snapshots of time, fossilized pieces of history. He catalogues them and classifies them, but there are some that just stand out. These are the ones he dwells on, even when he’s trying not to. These are the moments he can’t let go of, no matter how hard he tries.
Stephen telling him that the affair was in the past.
Stephen asking if what they were doing was right.
Stephen saying that he knew why Helen turned to him in the end.
Stephen looking so surprised when he found out Helen was lying to him.
Stephen surrounded by predators and not looking away, not even for a moment.
Stephen ripped in two, bleeding and broken.
These pieces are so vivid and strung together; it seems like his entire friendship with Stephen can be told in these jarring tidbits, a series snapshots punctuated by an irreversible end.
This is why Nick comes to hate the past. He can see all the pieces and they still never tell the whole story. Even if he satisfies all the questions, that doesn’t change the answers.
-o-
If he should have seen Helen’s turn coming, he thinks Stephen’s betrayal might have been less of a surprise. Helen’s never had time for students, and Stephen had always been ready to please. That’s why Nick always depended on Stephen. He could count on Stephen to follow a decisive lead, no matter what.
He’s mad at Stephen, but Nick has no illusions of whose idea it was or who got their heart broken in the end. Helen used Stephen each time, leaving him broken in the aftermath. Leaving him to die.
If Stephen’s betrayal is a surprise to him still, Stephen’s redemption never is.
-o-
Helen wants to change the past to save the future. She thinks Nick doesn’t understand.
But Nick remembers the sound of Stephen’s screams and he understands. Better than Helen ever could.
But if the last few months have taught him anything, it’s that you can’t change the past, no matter how much you want to. Time is not a series of disconnected moments but a progressive story that builds to the same inevitable climax before it’s over.
This is Nick’s comfort and his curse when Helen finally pulls the trigger.
-o-
When it’s done, Nick still wants to change the past. He still wants to mentor Connor better. He still wants to stop Helen from destroying the future. He still wants to make things right with Stephen.
But he doesn’t want to take this bullet out. He wants to let it bleed and bleed all the way through because he’s been bleeding all along. Since Stephen died, since Helen came back, since he first fell in love, since he dedicated his life to the study of the past.
Of all people, Nick knows that it’s the pieces that don’t fit that make history interesting.
But he knows now, at the end, that even the most disparate pieces don’t really matter because they don’t change the story.
Not even a little.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: A random Primeval ficlet. Unbeta’ed and not Brit-proofed. Spoilers up through mid season three, so it deals with various canon character deaths.
Summary: Ignoring history means sacrificing the future. Of all people, Nick knows better.
-o-
Time is a slow sword that can pierce any armor
As we drown our hearts hiding from the ghost of one another
-Don’t Hold Back (Full On) by The Normals
-o-
Nick has always said that it’s the pieces that don’t fit that make the past worth studying.
It’s that motivation that propels Nick to spend his life digging into history. And he does it with a flourish. He can list all the major geological eras and identify a multitude of obscure ancient species at a glance. He’s dedicated his life to making sense of the past, making the pieces that don’t fit parse.
So really, it’s a little ironic that it’s his own past that he doesn’t want to deal with at all.
Helen. Stephen. Their betrayals. Nick’s failure to both of them.
Nick knows better than to let that slide. Ignoring history means sacrificing the future. Of all people, he knows better.
-o-
Sometimes, Nick thinks about how it could have been different. He thinks he should have seen it coming.
Helen was always ambitious. She conquered the mysteries of the past and present; the future was her only boundary left to break. He should have known that he could never hold her, not with a stable job and a comfortable house. Not even with a loving marriage.
If he’d tried, maybe he could have stopped her. Maybe if he’d gone with her. Maybe if he’d asked her to stay. Maybe if he’d never fallen in love with her at all. Maybe then she wouldn’t be a monster.
But she is. She flits in and out of the past and present and uses anyone to get what she wants. She taunts him with their wedding vows and leaves the one person who believed in her to die for it.
Some monsters don’t know better.
Some do.
Looking to the past can answer questions but it can’t fix problems. That doesn’t seem to stop Nick, though, tackling one monster at a time. He tries not to think about the way he fails when it counts; he hopes it’s still enough.
He thinks of the day he married Helen and hopes it’s enough.
-o-
He’s a man of science. Looking at the facts and forming hypotheses is totally natural.
If he had talked it out when Stephen tried.
If he had told Stephen everything Helen had done.
If he had trusted Stephen’s judgment just once.
If he had known to save his punch for the time it really mattered.
But a hypothesis must be tested and he has no way of knowing the results of such theories.
-o-
Helen’s his wife.
Stephen was his friend.
It seems funny that he wants another chance to make things right with Stephen, but the further along this gets, the more he wishes that he never met Helen at all.
-o-
Sometimes, all Nick sees are moments. Snapshots of time, fossilized pieces of history. He catalogues them and classifies them, but there are some that just stand out. These are the ones he dwells on, even when he’s trying not to. These are the moments he can’t let go of, no matter how hard he tries.
Stephen telling him that the affair was in the past.
Stephen asking if what they were doing was right.
Stephen saying that he knew why Helen turned to him in the end.
Stephen looking so surprised when he found out Helen was lying to him.
Stephen surrounded by predators and not looking away, not even for a moment.
Stephen ripped in two, bleeding and broken.
These pieces are so vivid and strung together; it seems like his entire friendship with Stephen can be told in these jarring tidbits, a series snapshots punctuated by an irreversible end.
This is why Nick comes to hate the past. He can see all the pieces and they still never tell the whole story. Even if he satisfies all the questions, that doesn’t change the answers.
-o-
If he should have seen Helen’s turn coming, he thinks Stephen’s betrayal might have been less of a surprise. Helen’s never had time for students, and Stephen had always been ready to please. That’s why Nick always depended on Stephen. He could count on Stephen to follow a decisive lead, no matter what.
He’s mad at Stephen, but Nick has no illusions of whose idea it was or who got their heart broken in the end. Helen used Stephen each time, leaving him broken in the aftermath. Leaving him to die.
If Stephen’s betrayal is a surprise to him still, Stephen’s redemption never is.
-o-
Helen wants to change the past to save the future. She thinks Nick doesn’t understand.
But Nick remembers the sound of Stephen’s screams and he understands. Better than Helen ever could.
But if the last few months have taught him anything, it’s that you can’t change the past, no matter how much you want to. Time is not a series of disconnected moments but a progressive story that builds to the same inevitable climax before it’s over.
This is Nick’s comfort and his curse when Helen finally pulls the trigger.
-o-
When it’s done, Nick still wants to change the past. He still wants to mentor Connor better. He still wants to stop Helen from destroying the future. He still wants to make things right with Stephen.
But he doesn’t want to take this bullet out. He wants to let it bleed and bleed all the way through because he’s been bleeding all along. Since Stephen died, since Helen came back, since he first fell in love, since he dedicated his life to the study of the past.
Of all people, Nick knows that it’s the pieces that don’t fit that make history interesting.
But he knows now, at the end, that even the most disparate pieces don’t really matter because they don’t change the story.
Not even a little.