Fic - Home Truths (part 2 of 3)
Title: Home Truths
Author: Prehistoric Cat
Rating: PG
Characters: Danny, Abby, Patrick Quinn, Lucas Temple (OC)
Genre: Gen
Disclaimer: Not mine, no copyright intended
Warning: A few spoilers for series 4
Danny starts to ask questions about what has happened in the last 20 years...
It was shortly after midnight when Abby silently slid into the flat. It was in darkness; a fact she was relieved about; hoping to avoid the inevitable conversation. She hung her jacket on the peg by the door, stepped out of her shoes and crept across the lounge towards the bedroom door.
“Where have you been?” Patrick's voice said in the darkness. The lamp by the sofa was switched on, revealing Patrick stretched out on the sofa. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“I thought you and Danny needed some time alone.” Abby said. “I took Lucas out for dinner, then we went to Jack's. Lucas is going to stay over there for a couple of days, and maybe I should too.”
“No, Abby. I'm not going to keep any secrets from Danny.” Patrick said.
“The less he knows, the easier it will be for him when he goes back.” Abby said. “I thought that's what we agreed.”
“But he's going to ask questions. He'll want to know all about me; whether I'm married or in a relationship... I'm not going to lie.” Abby sat next to Patrick, leaning against his shoulder. “Then he'll want to know what happened to Connor.”
“Let me handle that, Pat. It's going to be hard getting his head around the fact that there's 20 years he's missed out on. To him, he last saw Connor and I a month ago and we weren't even a couple then. He's no fool, he'll have worked out who Lucas's father is just by looking at him, and he'll want to know the whole story.” Abby closed her eyes and allowed Patrick to slide his arm around her shoulders. “Anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. How are you feeling about all this?” she squeezed his hand.
“It's weird. I was 14 years old when I last saw my brother - that was over 34 years ago. He's a stranger to me, it's difficult to know what to say, or how I'm supposed to feel. You know him better than I do, Abby.”
Abby pulled Patrick into a soft kiss. “It'll be OK.” she whispered. “We should try to get some sleep though. Tomorrow is going to be a long day and I still don't know how much Danny should know.”
Patrick stood up and held out his hand for Abby. She took it, and allowed him to lead her to the bedroom they shared.
-o-
Danny slept until mid morning, when he was woken by the sound of voices. He lay still for a while, wondering who Patrick was talking to. It was definitely a female voice. After a few minutes, Danny's curiosity got the better of him and he dressed and ventured out of the room he'd slept in.
“Good morning!” Patrick said as Danny emerged. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby!” Danny smiled. It had been good to have a soft bed after a month of sleeping on the hard floor of a cave. He glanced around to see who else was in the flat, expecting to be introduced to Patrick's wife or girlfriend - to his surprise it was Abby sat at the large dining table drinking coffee. Abby blushed slightly as Danny caught her eye. “Morning, Abby.” he said with a nod. The look on his face said it all as the reality registered with him. She hadn't just stopped by for a morning coffee on her way to work; this was her home and the feminine touches Danny had noticed last night were hers.
“Morning, Danny. I guess I should explain.” Abby sighed. She glanced at Patrick and he nodded. This should come from her. “Patrick and I have been together for a few years now, and Lucas and I moved in about three years ago. It made sense; I was struggling to bring up a teenage boy on my own and Patrick has been like a father to him since we lost Connor.”
Danny felt his stomach lurch. So Connor was dead. “Abby, I'm sorry. How did he...”
“That's one of the things I don't know if I can tell you.” she said. “The less you know about what happened, the better. You'd only go back to your own time and try to change things - Connor always said interfering with our own past could be dangerous.”
“But won't my going back change things anyway? You've lived the last 20 years without me, but if I go back to 2010, then I'll be around.” Danny said.
“Yes, and that's another thing we need to talk about. Do we send you back to the time you actually belong in as Connor always maintained we should, or do we let you stay here?” Patrick said, handing Danny a mug of coffee.
“I should get going. The ARC won't run itself, and I dread to think what Lucas will get up to without supervision!” Abby said. She stood up and picked up her jacket. “I'll see you later, Danny.” She kissed Patrick on the cheek and left.
“How's she doing?” Danny said. “Can't be easy having me suddenly appear and drag up memories of the past.”
Patrick sighed “She had a nightmare last night, first one in a long time. Her experiences over the years would send stronger men straight into a mental institution, but she's a fighter. Sometimes I forget just how bad things have been for her; she usually hides it so well.”
Danny wondered if he should go after her, but he suspected that she was still the stubborn, independent girl he had known not so long ago and thought it best to leave her for a while. She'd be OK in her own time. “I just want to understand what's been going on in the 20 years since I disappeared. Surely I have a right to know what happened to the people I used to work with?” Danny said.
“Actually, its one of the few things I disagree with Abby about. You do have a right to know.”
“Then tell me!” Danny said.
“I can't. There's just Abby and I left now, and I promised her that we would be united in all decisions. But if you were to stumble upon the information accidentally...” Patrick smiled.
“Accidentally?”
“Yeah, when we go back to the ARC, I'll get Lucas to leave his password out or something. What you do with that when we leave you alone for a while is up to you.” He stood up and picked up a folder that Abby had left on the table. “Come on.” Danny drank down the last of his coffee and followed Patrick. At last he was going to get some answers.
-o-
At the ARC, Danny was left pretty much to his own devices as everyone went about their work. As promised, Lucas has scribbled his password onto a post-it note and left it by his computer when he went to make a drink.. Danny found a small side office that no-one else seemed to be using and closed the door. He wasn't one for technology at the best of times, and this computer seemed far advanced of anything he'd seen before. However, once logged in, and Lucas's password entered, it took him only a few minutes to find the archives he needed.
He scrolled down an incredibly long list of files, going right back to the time the ARC first started. Danny was only interested in those from the time of his disappearance along with Connor and Abby. It had come as no surprise to him that Lester had lost the backing of the government. He read Becker's report on the rescue mission during which Sarah Page died and had to fight back tears. Sarah had died trying to save him? It was almost too much, and he could understand why Abby was reluctant for him to know the truth. Maybe, if they let him go back to the right time and place, he could prevent Sarah's death... and that was exactly what Connor would be so against - changing major events like that. He recalled one of the first conversations he had had with Connor when he started at the ARC; how Cutter believed that even the most subtle interference could alter the course of history and erase people completely. Most had seemed sceptical, but Connor had believed it.
Pulling himself together, he read on - pulling up reports on the new personnel that were introduced, the private funding... and then finding that Abby and Connor made it home one year after they first disappeared. A whole year?! Danny couldn't get his head around that fact. He'd found one month difficult enough; Abby and Connor must have been through hell and back during that time. It couldn't have been that hard though, he noted with a smile - a footnote had been added by Lester. “Personal relationships between staff within the ARC are usually forbidden; however given the unusual circumstances surrounding Abby and Connor, we have no choice other than to accept that they are romantically linked, and both have given me their reassurances that it won't affect their work.”
After that, the ARC files took on different styles. There were the field reports; mostly written by Becker but occasionally someone called Matt Anderson had filed a report, and Abby had written up some too. Then there were the research documents - predominantly Connor's work with input from one or two others. Danny could tell that there had been a split in the team for a while - and then suddenly it changed again. Patrick's name appeared. There were interviews, medical tests, DNA results - all trying to verify he was who he claimed to be. Danny had known from the second he saw Patrick that it was genuinely him, but the others wouldn't have known and he was glad they'd taken his claims seriously.
It seemed they accepted Patrick as a member of the team pretty quickly once his identity was verified, and his address was initially listed as the same as Abby and Connor's - they'd taken him into their home for a while. By this time, Abby's name had changed to Temple and her file suggested that she was on maternity leave when Patrick appeared.
Danny leaned back on his chair. So far; apart from Sarah's death; there wasn't anything that had surprised him a great deal. He was struggling to understand why Abby was so stuck on him not knowing, so he scrolled forward through the files to more recent entries.. He had to find out how Connor had died.
The report had been written by Lester - it was one of only a dozen or so that he'd archived. It seemed that in March 2024, the ARC team - Becker, Matt, Connor, Patrick and Abby - had all gone through an anomaly. It was the first one Connor had managed to create himself successfully outside of the laboratory where he shut himself every day - a culmination of 14 years of research. Becker and Matt had gone through first, followed by Connor, with Abby and Patrick at the back. They had found themselves in some version of the future, and it quickly became apparent that something was wrong. Becker ordered them all back, so Abby and Patrick obeyed and went through - but Connor, Matt and Becker didn't follow. Patrick went back again, then ran out screaming for Abby to get the oxygen from the vehicles. When she returned, Matt, Becker and Connor were laid out unconscious by the anomaly and struggling for air. Becker died moments later, despite Patrick's desperate attempts to get his heart going again. Matt and Connor were rushed to hospital and straight into intensive care. Matt died later that day, and Connor a few hours after him - the post mortems showed that their lungs had rapidly disintegrated after breathing in some kind of toxic gas on the other side of the anomaly.
Before Danny had had time to digest everything he'd just read, the door of the office was flung open. “Patrick told me I'd find you in here. How much do you know?” Abby demanded, tears streaming down her face.
“Enough. Abby... I don't understand why you didn't want me to know any of this?”
“Because if you go back now and you meet Connor again - how will you be able to look him in the eye, knowing what happens to him? Knowing it was his research and his anomaly that caused the deaths of three people including himself?” Abby said. “It would kill him, and he'd give up before he'd even started. If Connor's research doesn't happen, then so many other lives would be lost.”
Danny knew Abby was right. It would devastate Connor. “So what happened after they died?”
Abby closed the door of the office and sat down. There was little point keeping anything else from him as he already knew the worst of it. “The ARC was closed down, apart from a small military team who manage anomalies as they occur. They have the detector that Connor built, they go out, deal with any creature incursion and then lock the anomaly until it closes of its own accord. There's no more research and definitely no more humans going through them.”
“So what's this place?” Danny said, puzzled.
“I disappeared for a while after Connor died.” Abby began. She felt tears prickling in her eyes and tried to fight them but failed. She hadn't spoken about Connor for a long time and this was harder than she thought it would be. “Lucas and I went to live with my brother. I didn't want anything else to do with anomalies ever again - I had lost the one man I truly loved because of them and lost people I cared about. Then Patrick found me and got me interested again - he wanted to restart the ARC and continue Connor's work, but this time, we would concentrate on helping the people trapped by the anomalies, not the creatures. I'd been trapped for a year, Patrick for 16 years - we knew how it felt to feel so lost. Pat can be very persuasive.”
“You use Connor's research to open anomalies and rescue people?” Danny said.
“In a nutshell, yes. We had to do something, otherwise Connor's death would have just been meaningless. Lucas is very much like Connor, he understands how it all works and can pretty much open an anomaly wherever and whenever we want it occur; give or take a couple of weeks. He came up with the cloaking device that allows us to open anomalies without the military picking them up - he's not even 20 yet.”
“Clever kid!” Danny said. “Connor would be proud of him.”
Abby nodded. “I almost wish Lucas was more like me though. I've tried to talk him out of getting so involved; I want him to finish his course at University and get a normal job... but he's set on being a part of the team and carrying on where his father left off.”
“And you and Patrick? Does he make you happy?” Danny smiled.
Abby nodded. “Not many people get a second stab at happiness. I loved Connor and we had an amazing 14 years together - we had ups and downs like any other couple of course, but it was mostly good. Losing him was probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love again, but it happened. Patrick's a good man, he reminds me of you sometimes.”
Danny wrapped his arms around her. “I guess that makes us almost family then!?” he said.
Abby blushed. “All this does put you in rather a difficult position though, and I need you to think very carefully about the next move.”
Danny understood what she was saying. His motto had always been 'everything happens for a reason', and he could see that Connor's death had changed the way the ARC worked - that people like him and Patrick were being helped back to their own time. It had also brought his brother together with a woman he loved. If he prevented Connor's death by warning him, then he would possibly be denying people the help they needed - and stopping his brother from being happy. But Connor was his friend too, how could he not say something?
“I think I'd like to be alone for a while.” Danny said.
“Of course.” Abby said. She reached into her pocket and handed Danny her car keys and the keys to the flat. “Our home is your home for as long as you need it.”
Danny made his way slowly back to Abby's car; his mind reeling.
Author: Prehistoric Cat
Rating: PG
Characters: Danny, Abby, Patrick Quinn, Lucas Temple (OC)
Genre: Gen
Disclaimer: Not mine, no copyright intended
Warning: A few spoilers for series 4
Danny starts to ask questions about what has happened in the last 20 years...
It was shortly after midnight when Abby silently slid into the flat. It was in darkness; a fact she was relieved about; hoping to avoid the inevitable conversation. She hung her jacket on the peg by the door, stepped out of her shoes and crept across the lounge towards the bedroom door.
“Where have you been?” Patrick's voice said in the darkness. The lamp by the sofa was switched on, revealing Patrick stretched out on the sofa. He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“I thought you and Danny needed some time alone.” Abby said. “I took Lucas out for dinner, then we went to Jack's. Lucas is going to stay over there for a couple of days, and maybe I should too.”
“No, Abby. I'm not going to keep any secrets from Danny.” Patrick said.
“The less he knows, the easier it will be for him when he goes back.” Abby said. “I thought that's what we agreed.”
“But he's going to ask questions. He'll want to know all about me; whether I'm married or in a relationship... I'm not going to lie.” Abby sat next to Patrick, leaning against his shoulder. “Then he'll want to know what happened to Connor.”
“Let me handle that, Pat. It's going to be hard getting his head around the fact that there's 20 years he's missed out on. To him, he last saw Connor and I a month ago and we weren't even a couple then. He's no fool, he'll have worked out who Lucas's father is just by looking at him, and he'll want to know the whole story.” Abby closed her eyes and allowed Patrick to slide his arm around her shoulders. “Anyway, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. How are you feeling about all this?” she squeezed his hand.
“It's weird. I was 14 years old when I last saw my brother - that was over 34 years ago. He's a stranger to me, it's difficult to know what to say, or how I'm supposed to feel. You know him better than I do, Abby.”
Abby pulled Patrick into a soft kiss. “It'll be OK.” she whispered. “We should try to get some sleep though. Tomorrow is going to be a long day and I still don't know how much Danny should know.”
Patrick stood up and held out his hand for Abby. She took it, and allowed him to lead her to the bedroom they shared.
-o-
Danny slept until mid morning, when he was woken by the sound of voices. He lay still for a while, wondering who Patrick was talking to. It was definitely a female voice. After a few minutes, Danny's curiosity got the better of him and he dressed and ventured out of the room he'd slept in.
“Good morning!” Patrick said as Danny emerged. “Sleep well?”
“Like a baby!” Danny smiled. It had been good to have a soft bed after a month of sleeping on the hard floor of a cave. He glanced around to see who else was in the flat, expecting to be introduced to Patrick's wife or girlfriend - to his surprise it was Abby sat at the large dining table drinking coffee. Abby blushed slightly as Danny caught her eye. “Morning, Abby.” he said with a nod. The look on his face said it all as the reality registered with him. She hadn't just stopped by for a morning coffee on her way to work; this was her home and the feminine touches Danny had noticed last night were hers.
“Morning, Danny. I guess I should explain.” Abby sighed. She glanced at Patrick and he nodded. This should come from her. “Patrick and I have been together for a few years now, and Lucas and I moved in about three years ago. It made sense; I was struggling to bring up a teenage boy on my own and Patrick has been like a father to him since we lost Connor.”
Danny felt his stomach lurch. So Connor was dead. “Abby, I'm sorry. How did he...”
“That's one of the things I don't know if I can tell you.” she said. “The less you know about what happened, the better. You'd only go back to your own time and try to change things - Connor always said interfering with our own past could be dangerous.”
“But won't my going back change things anyway? You've lived the last 20 years without me, but if I go back to 2010, then I'll be around.” Danny said.
“Yes, and that's another thing we need to talk about. Do we send you back to the time you actually belong in as Connor always maintained we should, or do we let you stay here?” Patrick said, handing Danny a mug of coffee.
“I should get going. The ARC won't run itself, and I dread to think what Lucas will get up to without supervision!” Abby said. She stood up and picked up her jacket. “I'll see you later, Danny.” She kissed Patrick on the cheek and left.
“How's she doing?” Danny said. “Can't be easy having me suddenly appear and drag up memories of the past.”
Patrick sighed “She had a nightmare last night, first one in a long time. Her experiences over the years would send stronger men straight into a mental institution, but she's a fighter. Sometimes I forget just how bad things have been for her; she usually hides it so well.”
Danny wondered if he should go after her, but he suspected that she was still the stubborn, independent girl he had known not so long ago and thought it best to leave her for a while. She'd be OK in her own time. “I just want to understand what's been going on in the 20 years since I disappeared. Surely I have a right to know what happened to the people I used to work with?” Danny said.
“Actually, its one of the few things I disagree with Abby about. You do have a right to know.”
“Then tell me!” Danny said.
“I can't. There's just Abby and I left now, and I promised her that we would be united in all decisions. But if you were to stumble upon the information accidentally...” Patrick smiled.
“Accidentally?”
“Yeah, when we go back to the ARC, I'll get Lucas to leave his password out or something. What you do with that when we leave you alone for a while is up to you.” He stood up and picked up a folder that Abby had left on the table. “Come on.” Danny drank down the last of his coffee and followed Patrick. At last he was going to get some answers.
-o-
At the ARC, Danny was left pretty much to his own devices as everyone went about their work. As promised, Lucas has scribbled his password onto a post-it note and left it by his computer when he went to make a drink.. Danny found a small side office that no-one else seemed to be using and closed the door. He wasn't one for technology at the best of times, and this computer seemed far advanced of anything he'd seen before. However, once logged in, and Lucas's password entered, it took him only a few minutes to find the archives he needed.
He scrolled down an incredibly long list of files, going right back to the time the ARC first started. Danny was only interested in those from the time of his disappearance along with Connor and Abby. It had come as no surprise to him that Lester had lost the backing of the government. He read Becker's report on the rescue mission during which Sarah Page died and had to fight back tears. Sarah had died trying to save him? It was almost too much, and he could understand why Abby was reluctant for him to know the truth. Maybe, if they let him go back to the right time and place, he could prevent Sarah's death... and that was exactly what Connor would be so against - changing major events like that. He recalled one of the first conversations he had had with Connor when he started at the ARC; how Cutter believed that even the most subtle interference could alter the course of history and erase people completely. Most had seemed sceptical, but Connor had believed it.
Pulling himself together, he read on - pulling up reports on the new personnel that were introduced, the private funding... and then finding that Abby and Connor made it home one year after they first disappeared. A whole year?! Danny couldn't get his head around that fact. He'd found one month difficult enough; Abby and Connor must have been through hell and back during that time. It couldn't have been that hard though, he noted with a smile - a footnote had been added by Lester. “Personal relationships between staff within the ARC are usually forbidden; however given the unusual circumstances surrounding Abby and Connor, we have no choice other than to accept that they are romantically linked, and both have given me their reassurances that it won't affect their work.”
After that, the ARC files took on different styles. There were the field reports; mostly written by Becker but occasionally someone called Matt Anderson had filed a report, and Abby had written up some too. Then there were the research documents - predominantly Connor's work with input from one or two others. Danny could tell that there had been a split in the team for a while - and then suddenly it changed again. Patrick's name appeared. There were interviews, medical tests, DNA results - all trying to verify he was who he claimed to be. Danny had known from the second he saw Patrick that it was genuinely him, but the others wouldn't have known and he was glad they'd taken his claims seriously.
It seemed they accepted Patrick as a member of the team pretty quickly once his identity was verified, and his address was initially listed as the same as Abby and Connor's - they'd taken him into their home for a while. By this time, Abby's name had changed to Temple and her file suggested that she was on maternity leave when Patrick appeared.
Danny leaned back on his chair. So far; apart from Sarah's death; there wasn't anything that had surprised him a great deal. He was struggling to understand why Abby was so stuck on him not knowing, so he scrolled forward through the files to more recent entries.. He had to find out how Connor had died.
The report had been written by Lester - it was one of only a dozen or so that he'd archived. It seemed that in March 2024, the ARC team - Becker, Matt, Connor, Patrick and Abby - had all gone through an anomaly. It was the first one Connor had managed to create himself successfully outside of the laboratory where he shut himself every day - a culmination of 14 years of research. Becker and Matt had gone through first, followed by Connor, with Abby and Patrick at the back. They had found themselves in some version of the future, and it quickly became apparent that something was wrong. Becker ordered them all back, so Abby and Patrick obeyed and went through - but Connor, Matt and Becker didn't follow. Patrick went back again, then ran out screaming for Abby to get the oxygen from the vehicles. When she returned, Matt, Becker and Connor were laid out unconscious by the anomaly and struggling for air. Becker died moments later, despite Patrick's desperate attempts to get his heart going again. Matt and Connor were rushed to hospital and straight into intensive care. Matt died later that day, and Connor a few hours after him - the post mortems showed that their lungs had rapidly disintegrated after breathing in some kind of toxic gas on the other side of the anomaly.
Before Danny had had time to digest everything he'd just read, the door of the office was flung open. “Patrick told me I'd find you in here. How much do you know?” Abby demanded, tears streaming down her face.
“Enough. Abby... I don't understand why you didn't want me to know any of this?”
“Because if you go back now and you meet Connor again - how will you be able to look him in the eye, knowing what happens to him? Knowing it was his research and his anomaly that caused the deaths of three people including himself?” Abby said. “It would kill him, and he'd give up before he'd even started. If Connor's research doesn't happen, then so many other lives would be lost.”
Danny knew Abby was right. It would devastate Connor. “So what happened after they died?”
Abby closed the door of the office and sat down. There was little point keeping anything else from him as he already knew the worst of it. “The ARC was closed down, apart from a small military team who manage anomalies as they occur. They have the detector that Connor built, they go out, deal with any creature incursion and then lock the anomaly until it closes of its own accord. There's no more research and definitely no more humans going through them.”
“So what's this place?” Danny said, puzzled.
“I disappeared for a while after Connor died.” Abby began. She felt tears prickling in her eyes and tried to fight them but failed. She hadn't spoken about Connor for a long time and this was harder than she thought it would be. “Lucas and I went to live with my brother. I didn't want anything else to do with anomalies ever again - I had lost the one man I truly loved because of them and lost people I cared about. Then Patrick found me and got me interested again - he wanted to restart the ARC and continue Connor's work, but this time, we would concentrate on helping the people trapped by the anomalies, not the creatures. I'd been trapped for a year, Patrick for 16 years - we knew how it felt to feel so lost. Pat can be very persuasive.”
“You use Connor's research to open anomalies and rescue people?” Danny said.
“In a nutshell, yes. We had to do something, otherwise Connor's death would have just been meaningless. Lucas is very much like Connor, he understands how it all works and can pretty much open an anomaly wherever and whenever we want it occur; give or take a couple of weeks. He came up with the cloaking device that allows us to open anomalies without the military picking them up - he's not even 20 yet.”
“Clever kid!” Danny said. “Connor would be proud of him.”
Abby nodded. “I almost wish Lucas was more like me though. I've tried to talk him out of getting so involved; I want him to finish his course at University and get a normal job... but he's set on being a part of the team and carrying on where his father left off.”
“And you and Patrick? Does he make you happy?” Danny smiled.
Abby nodded. “Not many people get a second stab at happiness. I loved Connor and we had an amazing 14 years together - we had ups and downs like any other couple of course, but it was mostly good. Losing him was probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I didn't think I'd ever fall in love again, but it happened. Patrick's a good man, he reminds me of you sometimes.”
Danny wrapped his arms around her. “I guess that makes us almost family then!?” he said.
Abby blushed. “All this does put you in rather a difficult position though, and I need you to think very carefully about the next move.”
Danny understood what she was saying. His motto had always been 'everything happens for a reason', and he could see that Connor's death had changed the way the ARC worked - that people like him and Patrick were being helped back to their own time. It had also brought his brother together with a woman he loved. If he prevented Connor's death by warning him, then he would possibly be denying people the help they needed - and stopping his brother from being happy. But Connor was his friend too, how could he not say something?
“I think I'd like to be alone for a while.” Danny said.
“Of course.” Abby said. She reached into her pocket and handed Danny her car keys and the keys to the flat. “Our home is your home for as long as you need it.”
Danny made his way slowly back to Abby's car; his mind reeling.