Primeval fic: A Little Old Fashioned
Title: A Little Old Fashioned
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything here, not even Sid and Nancy. I wish I owned Sid and Nancy.
Series: Sort of AU S4/5? Ish?
Summary: Connor and Emily come together, all just based on being a little old-fashioned.
Rating: PG-13
A/N: So, this is sort of assuming that Abby pulled a, "I don't want things to be weird," after they got back from the Cretaceous. I 'ship them, really I do, all evidence to the contrary, but sometimes I like a good, "Screw this, I'm done with it," sort of setup. Second, I'm pretending Philip Burton and that whole arc (no puns intended) were, at best, a minor nuisance. Also, if the mods in their modly wisdom should feel this is not an appropriate medium for this fic, do let me know. But I'm going to run the experiment. Yes, I have run quite mad, why do you ask?
*****************************
Connor had known that Abby was chock full of defenses, but he'd really thought that their year alone together had got him past those. He was wrong. Two weeks after they'd returned to their proper present, she'd said it for what he intended to be the last time. "My boyfriend? Oh, God no."
It was the last straw. He'd been mad for her the moment he saw her, in love with her for so long, and now? He was just done. It just hurt too much and he couldn't stand to be living in the same space with her. In the end, without having to account for Abby and Rex and with all the back-pay he was owed, finding the right flat didn't take nearly as long as he'd expected. A word or two with Becker, and he'd had a sort of petty revenge as he took Sid and Nancy out of the menagerie and moved into his new flat, far away from Abby and her moods and her goddamned mind games. If she ever pulled her head out of her arse and apologised, he might be able to forgive, but until she admitted that she'd been blowing hot and cold and practically leading him on, he just couldn't take it anymore.
And it was nice to be able to use the microwave to warm up his socks again. She'd never let him do that once he'd been living with her.
*******************************
The twenty-first century was really quite brilliant, Emily thought. It wasn't merely that she always had the option of wearing trousers (which option alone made it quite brilliant), it was that here, she was a person. Men looked at her and talked to her with the automatic expectation that she was a competent human being, capable of working as their equal and thinking no less of her for having opinions. She could come and go as she pleased with neither abigail nor husband to shackle her, and the strictures of what was indecent behaviour were so lax as to be nonexistent.
Admittedly that last one led to some rather dreadful behaviours on the part of some people, but being able to do things which struck her as merely efficient when back home they would have been seen as appallingly forward . . . well.
As time passed and she became more used to the ARC and the people therein, she found herself gradually becoming less enamoured of Matt. For one thing, the very thing that so attracted her to him, that he'd treated her as an equal, was so much de rigueur for these people that it hardly stood out. Indeed, he hardly seemed to know what to do with the romantic feelings he claimed to have for her, and his dedication to his mission meant that he was always and forever treating everything as having to do with it.
Their nonrelationship, such as it was, came to a head one day when he accidentally blurted out that he liked spending time with her because he knew that, she being from when she was from, could have nothing to do with the crisis he was there to avert.
It was a small thing, then, to decide they would be best off friends.
*************************************
One of the weirdest things about working for Lester, Connor found, was that the man felt obligated to host fancy once-a-year parties for his subordinates. These weren't any sort of thing Connor was used to in the normal course of things, and had, indeed, made him nervous as hell the first year. These were swanky events with tuxedos and women in sparkly, fancy dresses that cost way too much.
It made him nervous, because the whole evening he'd just sit there, terrified he was going to spill something. Cutter had always looked grouchy at these things, so Connor avoided him then, while Stephen had lost his jacket early in the proceedings and would vanish off as soon as it was polite with one of the sparkly girls. Becker always had a look of depressed tolerance on his face, and Danny had let nothing get to him, looking just as comfortable there as he did when he was dangling upside-down in an airshaft.
What it really came down to in the end, was that Sarah and Jenny were the only two who had truly looked like they belonged at one of the parties, since Abby, like Connor, was more of a crisps and dips kind of girl.
But since Lester demanded it, they went.
This year it was going to be worse. Connor had been able to sometimes escape with Abby to the dance floor, where she'd try to lead and he'd let her because awkwardly cruising around with her meant he was holding her, and that was better than anything. But not this year. This year he'd had enough of Abby, and all he could do was sit through the whole thing until it was over, praying something would happen to get him out of it (but nothing so awful he'd take it back when it happened).
Connor actually could dance, and dance well. His Gran was an old-fashioned sort of lady who had made him learn every traditional couples dance she knew, from the waltz to the jitterbug. With Abby trying to lead all the time, he'd never actually danced properly with her, and he did sort of enjoy it, but antagonising Abby by noting she was doing it wrong would have just meant an argument. Anyhow, not many people waltzed right these days, so he was just going to have to wait it out and hope the food was good and not rich people food. Why people ate things that tasted nasty and were hard to handle just because they were expensive, he didn't know.
The members of the top ARC team showed up in a clump as they usually did. Becker was looking fit and spiffy in his uniform, a look affixed to his face much like the one he had whenever Danny did something mad and stupid. Matt was blank-faced as always, and Connor realised that he was going to have to reevaluate his theory of Becker as super-robot, because the soldier had way more personality than Matt did, which . . . maybe Matt was the robot from the future? He was always really stiff like one.
Abby was all sparkly and pretty like she always was when she did the girl thing, but looked irate with the whole process, and Connor vowed to stay out of her way, because they'd probably wind up rowing in Lester's party and that would be bad. Jess was the one person there who looked happy to be there, and she was walking on a pair of shoes Connor would have sworn were some sort of futuristic animal trapping contraption rather than shoes. Lastly was Emily. She looked . . . resigned. Beautiful, but resigned. Her dress was fairly old-fashioned, but she wore it well. Connor looked down at the fancy tux he'd found in the thrift store so long ago with its matched hat, and decided to take the risk. She didn't look likely to bite his head off, and maybe he'd have someone there to talk to.
**********************
Emily sighed as she got out of the car with Jess. The younger woman could chatter at a frightening rate and reminded Emily of nothing so much as those poor things in their first Season, before they learned to treat everything with the cynicism it quite deserved. She was a little tired, though, of Jess and Abby's complaints about her dress.
If she was going to suffer through a ball that no one but Jess (and possibly Mr. Lester, but there was truly no way of telling with that one) was looking forward to, she would at least spend it in formal clothing she felt a modicum of comfort in. She was drawn from her contemplation by the sight of Connor Temple, looking surprisingly dashing in a top hat, waistcoat and suit. He was wearing a pair of gloves with no fingers on them and a cravat to complete the ensemble.
"Mrs. Merchant," he said with that charming grin of his, "I don't suppose I could have the honour of escorting you this evening?" He held out an arm, and Emily paused a moment, then decided she would. His somewhat rustic accent was charming, and he didn't look nearly as sour as the other gentlemen did either.
"I'd be delighted, Mr. Temple," she said. As they started up the stairs, she said, "If I'd been insisting on being proper, Connor, I would have said you should call me, 'Lady Merchant', but I think I can allow that to pass this evening." She smiled at him, watching as his mobile face passed through horror and embarrassment to a pleased smile. "I'm actually rather grateful. I was worried I'd be trapped with Jessica all evening," she admitted. "I don't know anyone else besides the team, and Abby-"
"Abby hates this thing," Connor finished with a wry grin. "So does Becker and so do I. I don't actually know Matt well enough to tell, but then, he hardly ever looks like he's having fun." For a moment he looked at Abby sadly. "The only thing that used to make this worthwhile was dancing with Abby, but . . ." He trailed off and shook off the melancholy. "Cutter never liked these either. He'd just sit there, a grumpy Scotsman in the corner." He shot her a grin. "The first year he dug a kilt out of I don't know where and scandalised Lester for showing up in it." He gave a theatrical shudder. "I don't care that he was thumbing his nose at Lester, that was horrible."
Emily laughed. It set the tone for the evening for her, as Connor was an attentive and amusing companion. He told her stories of the first days of the ARC, which made her regret all the more she'd not made it to the 21st century a little sooner. She thought she might have found a place truly her own on that old team, the one Connor called, "Cleverly constructed of the greatest experts that happened to be around when they found the scutosaurus." It sounded fun and exciting to have been making it all up as they went, a little like those first months of travel through the gates when she'd discovered the freedom that came with never having to worry what anyone would think of her and not having to be polite to people she hated and getting along with the old cats and the endless rounds of calls and drives.
The dinner talk between everyone was quite subdued, but Connor wickedly told her jokes and stories about the previous years' parties and made fun of Lester and Becker and had convinced her to join him in hiding nasty bits of food that was clearly expensive underneath the salad, telling her that, if she liked, she could join him in Abby's place in picking a restaurant to go to afterward where they'd be horribly overdressed but the food would be normal. Actually, much of what was there was really quite excellent, but since Connor didn't like it, she let it go, because the game was sufficiently amusing that she'd far rather that, than listen to Becker be sarcastic and Abby snap and snarl.
Jess didn't even bear thinking of, and by the sometimes wide-eyed look on Connor's face as the girl chattered away, he seemed just as put off.
As even such uncomfortable things must end, so too did the dinner, and Connor was an utter gentleman, walking her to the ballroom, where people began to circulate and some few couples danced, slowly revolving in the middle of the floor. Of course, it wasn't dancing quite as Emily was used to seeing, with proper steps and movement, but there was a somewhat hypnotic effect of the slow swaying.
It took some effort, but Connor drew Becker into their conversation, and eventually Abby joined in as well, the three reminiscing about the previous days of the ARC. It clearly wasn't deliberate on their parts, but Emily gradually felt more and more excluded. She was just about to make her excuses, find a way to leave as she had noted Matt had done, when Connor sat up suddenly and asked her, "You did say you used to like dancing and balls, didn't you, Emily?"
Startled at the change in subject, she blinked a little, then answered, "Yes, it was the one thing I did truly enjoy with Henry. He was an excellent dancer." In spite of herself, she smiled a little at the memories. "I loved to waltz with him."
Connor's face lit up with a grin that made his dark eyes sparkle and he suddenly stood. "I'll be right back, then I'm claiming a dance with you." He swept into a surprisingly elegant bow. "M'lady."
"Huh," said Abby.
"I wouldn't have thought he had that in him," Becker said idly.
Silence descended, but a moment or two later, Connor was there and pulling her onto the floor. "Connor, I don't know. This . . . what everyone here is doing is not what I am used to."
"Trust me," he said. He placed the one hand on her hip and put her other in his own, and then the music started. It was unlike anything she'd ever danced to before, but the time was right, and Connor was, delightfully, even more competent than Henry at waltzing. He smiled at her surprise and took her into a few brilliant turns that made her laugh. "I can't do this with Abby," he said. "She's forever trying to lead."
"I can't imagine why," Emily smiled up at him as they swept past a startled-looking Lester and his wife. Indeed, the rest of the evening was a delightful blur of dancing, as it seemed Connor had said something to the young woman handling the musical choices for the evening, and there was a waltz open every few songs.
*************************************
Connor quite liked Emily. She was nice, she was never horrible to him, she never took the piss just because he was awkward and silly and liked Star Wars more than most people and because of all that, he never felt like he had to censor what he said when he was around her just because she was going to say something hurtful, because she just wasn't. Also, unlike Abby, she wasn't prickly with him when he treated her like a lady the way his Dad and Gran had dinned into his head to do.
Jess still scared him, reminding him of those horrible girls in his days in school who always walked by with their fake smiles and bright clothes and mocking laughter that thought it was tremendously funny to make him trip all over himself and get beaten up by the rugby team. Jess wasn't really like that, but she just sort of brought it to mind and made Connor wary all over again.
But Emily wasn't frightening, she wasn't mercurial and she was calm and sensible and Connor quite envied Matt for having her.
"What do you mean, she's not dating Matt?" he had asked Becker a few days ago, perplexed.
Becker shook his head. "You need to get out of that lab more, Connor. They stopped seeing each other a month ago." Then the soldier wandered off to do whatever it was he did when he spent inordinate amounts of time in the armoury. Connor sometimes wondered about that man and his guns.
He was in his lab, supposed to be working on something-or-other, but he couldn't focus. All he could think about was Emily's dark hair in its ringlets, the way she smiled when she was amused, the way she'd danced at the party the night before and that she was able to be right scary like Abby, but didn't abuse it at Connor's expense. He decided to take the risk. He hadn't liked asking girls out, mostly because he could never just say it, and saying, "Do you want to go on a date with me?" was gauche and got you laughed at. But Emily was a proper Victorian lady, and that meant he could ask her in a way that meant he didn't even have to be in the room to mess it up.
He opened up Google and quickly found the information he'd been looking for, and on the way in to the ARC the next day stopped off at a flower shop to get just the right ones. Emily had her own locker now, and Connor left the flowers there, a small card with his name on it attached.
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Emily got into the ARC that morning to an intriguing surprise. The small posy attached to her locker was one she had seen during her first season when she was at balls and young gentlemen tried to court her. In concert, the flowers asked her a question. Did she want to go walking with the sender, and could he pay his address to her? Attached to the flowers was a small card, reading only, CT.
In this time of tremendous forwardness, she had to admit that it was clearly rather odd. But it was also sweet and a little hesitant, just like Connor Temple.
There wasn't a chance for her to say anything, because the anomaly detection device went off and they were running about, herding up a couple of giant sloths loose in Hyde Park. At the end of the day, however, she finally had the chance to catch up with Connor, carrying the flowers.
"That's a bit of an odd bouquet," Jess said frankly, looking at the flowers in some dismay. "Who'd spend the money on that?"
Connor poking around on one of the computers in the hub, looked up and flinched. Emily walked over to him and smiled, tossing to Jess over her shoulder, "It means a lot more than just looking pretty." When she got to Connor she added, with her own frankness, "But you'll never make it as a flower arranger."
His smile was nervous as he said, "Well, it's not something I've done much of, yeah?"
"I'd love to go walking with you, Connor."
She quite decided that making him smile was a reward on its own, the way it lit up his face.
******************************
They went walking, Connor suggesting that she just see London as it was now and then maybe decide what she wanted to see more of from this exciting new future she found herself in. One waking date turned into two, turned into going to the movies and renting a car to take Emily driving in the country.
Then it turned into teaching her to drive, because she told him she'd be damned if she was going to eternally rely on everyone else to get her about, used as she was to being able to take a carriage or go riding to anywhere she wished.
It was brilliant, Connor decided, dating a woman who actually thought he was funny.
*****************************
The whole world was full of exciting possibilities she'd never imagined, and Connor was, perhaps, the ideal young man to show them to her. Unlike Matt and Becker, he could shift from perfect modernity to what was now an old-fashioned sort of gentlemanly behaviour, but he was scrupulous at treating her like a real person, and unlike those two, also simply assumed (rightly so) that she was better at taking care of herself in the field than he was.
For the first time, those ridiculous childish romantic novels about falling in love made sense to her, and Connor's brilliant smile filled her dreams.
There was one thing, however, that she'd discovered about this century. With utterly reliable forms of contraception, all the old taboos about ladies not having relations before marriage had relaxed, precisely because the problems that came from it were, for the most part, obviated. She knew Connor thought her beautiful, he told her often and sent her emails of pictures of arranged bouquets telling her the same. He certainly was fit and quite handsome. But he was always very careful to never do anything she might find presumptuous when it came to that, and after some . . . interesting girl's nights in with Jess, Emily decided she would do something about it.
She asked to see his flat, curious about where he lived and what it was like, wondering if it was like Jess' or Matt's. It was, all over again, different from theirs. For one thing, he had pets, two illicitly kept diictodons he called Sid and Nancy. They were both ugly and adorable, and Emily smiled fondly at the way he played with them, laughed at the way he showed off his television and gaming system proudly, and joined him in watching a film he called a classic, called Jurassic Park.
"I really don't know why no one wants to watch it with me," he commented idly from where he sat beside her. "I mean, the special effects hold together as well today as they did then, and I'm pretty sure they got the raptors not to badly off from reality, all things considered."
The idiot children in the film were waving around their torches, apparently hoping the tyrannosaurus rex would eat them, when Emily decided she couldn't stand it anymore. Connor was in the middle of a sentence when she turned and kissed him. He was still and silent a moment, then his arms moved around her almost convulsively, and when he kissed her back, Emily thought she finally knew what all the romance novels were talking about.
Three hours later, naked and dishevelled, relaxed and nearly tingling from Connor's lovemaking, she laughed as he raced around the flat, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts trying to corral Sid, who'd come into the room to watch, while she laughed from the bed and cuddled Nancy, Emily knew what all the novels talked about were lies, because this was so much better.
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Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything here, not even Sid and Nancy. I wish I owned Sid and Nancy.
Series: Sort of AU S4/5? Ish?
Summary: Connor and Emily come together, all just based on being a little old-fashioned.
Rating: PG-13
A/N: So, this is sort of assuming that Abby pulled a, "I don't want things to be weird," after they got back from the Cretaceous. I 'ship them, really I do, all evidence to the contrary, but sometimes I like a good, "Screw this, I'm done with it," sort of setup. Second, I'm pretending Philip Burton and that whole arc (no puns intended) were, at best, a minor nuisance. Also, if the mods in their modly wisdom should feel this is not an appropriate medium for this fic, do let me know. But I'm going to run the experiment. Yes, I have run quite mad, why do you ask?
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Connor had known that Abby was chock full of defenses, but he'd really thought that their year alone together had got him past those. He was wrong. Two weeks after they'd returned to their proper present, she'd said it for what he intended to be the last time. "My boyfriend? Oh, God no."
It was the last straw. He'd been mad for her the moment he saw her, in love with her for so long, and now? He was just done. It just hurt too much and he couldn't stand to be living in the same space with her. In the end, without having to account for Abby and Rex and with all the back-pay he was owed, finding the right flat didn't take nearly as long as he'd expected. A word or two with Becker, and he'd had a sort of petty revenge as he took Sid and Nancy out of the menagerie and moved into his new flat, far away from Abby and her moods and her goddamned mind games. If she ever pulled her head out of her arse and apologised, he might be able to forgive, but until she admitted that she'd been blowing hot and cold and practically leading him on, he just couldn't take it anymore.
And it was nice to be able to use the microwave to warm up his socks again. She'd never let him do that once he'd been living with her.
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The twenty-first century was really quite brilliant, Emily thought. It wasn't merely that she always had the option of wearing trousers (which option alone made it quite brilliant), it was that here, she was a person. Men looked at her and talked to her with the automatic expectation that she was a competent human being, capable of working as their equal and thinking no less of her for having opinions. She could come and go as she pleased with neither abigail nor husband to shackle her, and the strictures of what was indecent behaviour were so lax as to be nonexistent.
Admittedly that last one led to some rather dreadful behaviours on the part of some people, but being able to do things which struck her as merely efficient when back home they would have been seen as appallingly forward . . . well.
As time passed and she became more used to the ARC and the people therein, she found herself gradually becoming less enamoured of Matt. For one thing, the very thing that so attracted her to him, that he'd treated her as an equal, was so much de rigueur for these people that it hardly stood out. Indeed, he hardly seemed to know what to do with the romantic feelings he claimed to have for her, and his dedication to his mission meant that he was always and forever treating everything as having to do with it.
Their nonrelationship, such as it was, came to a head one day when he accidentally blurted out that he liked spending time with her because he knew that, she being from when she was from, could have nothing to do with the crisis he was there to avert.
It was a small thing, then, to decide they would be best off friends.
*************************************
One of the weirdest things about working for Lester, Connor found, was that the man felt obligated to host fancy once-a-year parties for his subordinates. These weren't any sort of thing Connor was used to in the normal course of things, and had, indeed, made him nervous as hell the first year. These were swanky events with tuxedos and women in sparkly, fancy dresses that cost way too much.
It made him nervous, because the whole evening he'd just sit there, terrified he was going to spill something. Cutter had always looked grouchy at these things, so Connor avoided him then, while Stephen had lost his jacket early in the proceedings and would vanish off as soon as it was polite with one of the sparkly girls. Becker always had a look of depressed tolerance on his face, and Danny had let nothing get to him, looking just as comfortable there as he did when he was dangling upside-down in an airshaft.
What it really came down to in the end, was that Sarah and Jenny were the only two who had truly looked like they belonged at one of the parties, since Abby, like Connor, was more of a crisps and dips kind of girl.
But since Lester demanded it, they went.
This year it was going to be worse. Connor had been able to sometimes escape with Abby to the dance floor, where she'd try to lead and he'd let her because awkwardly cruising around with her meant he was holding her, and that was better than anything. But not this year. This year he'd had enough of Abby, and all he could do was sit through the whole thing until it was over, praying something would happen to get him out of it (but nothing so awful he'd take it back when it happened).
Connor actually could dance, and dance well. His Gran was an old-fashioned sort of lady who had made him learn every traditional couples dance she knew, from the waltz to the jitterbug. With Abby trying to lead all the time, he'd never actually danced properly with her, and he did sort of enjoy it, but antagonising Abby by noting she was doing it wrong would have just meant an argument. Anyhow, not many people waltzed right these days, so he was just going to have to wait it out and hope the food was good and not rich people food. Why people ate things that tasted nasty and were hard to handle just because they were expensive, he didn't know.
The members of the top ARC team showed up in a clump as they usually did. Becker was looking fit and spiffy in his uniform, a look affixed to his face much like the one he had whenever Danny did something mad and stupid. Matt was blank-faced as always, and Connor realised that he was going to have to reevaluate his theory of Becker as super-robot, because the soldier had way more personality than Matt did, which . . . maybe Matt was the robot from the future? He was always really stiff like one.
Abby was all sparkly and pretty like she always was when she did the girl thing, but looked irate with the whole process, and Connor vowed to stay out of her way, because they'd probably wind up rowing in Lester's party and that would be bad. Jess was the one person there who looked happy to be there, and she was walking on a pair of shoes Connor would have sworn were some sort of futuristic animal trapping contraption rather than shoes. Lastly was Emily. She looked . . . resigned. Beautiful, but resigned. Her dress was fairly old-fashioned, but she wore it well. Connor looked down at the fancy tux he'd found in the thrift store so long ago with its matched hat, and decided to take the risk. She didn't look likely to bite his head off, and maybe he'd have someone there to talk to.
**********************
Emily sighed as she got out of the car with Jess. The younger woman could chatter at a frightening rate and reminded Emily of nothing so much as those poor things in their first Season, before they learned to treat everything with the cynicism it quite deserved. She was a little tired, though, of Jess and Abby's complaints about her dress.
If she was going to suffer through a ball that no one but Jess (and possibly Mr. Lester, but there was truly no way of telling with that one) was looking forward to, she would at least spend it in formal clothing she felt a modicum of comfort in. She was drawn from her contemplation by the sight of Connor Temple, looking surprisingly dashing in a top hat, waistcoat and suit. He was wearing a pair of gloves with no fingers on them and a cravat to complete the ensemble.
"Mrs. Merchant," he said with that charming grin of his, "I don't suppose I could have the honour of escorting you this evening?" He held out an arm, and Emily paused a moment, then decided she would. His somewhat rustic accent was charming, and he didn't look nearly as sour as the other gentlemen did either.
"I'd be delighted, Mr. Temple," she said. As they started up the stairs, she said, "If I'd been insisting on being proper, Connor, I would have said you should call me, 'Lady Merchant', but I think I can allow that to pass this evening." She smiled at him, watching as his mobile face passed through horror and embarrassment to a pleased smile. "I'm actually rather grateful. I was worried I'd be trapped with Jessica all evening," she admitted. "I don't know anyone else besides the team, and Abby-"
"Abby hates this thing," Connor finished with a wry grin. "So does Becker and so do I. I don't actually know Matt well enough to tell, but then, he hardly ever looks like he's having fun." For a moment he looked at Abby sadly. "The only thing that used to make this worthwhile was dancing with Abby, but . . ." He trailed off and shook off the melancholy. "Cutter never liked these either. He'd just sit there, a grumpy Scotsman in the corner." He shot her a grin. "The first year he dug a kilt out of I don't know where and scandalised Lester for showing up in it." He gave a theatrical shudder. "I don't care that he was thumbing his nose at Lester, that was horrible."
Emily laughed. It set the tone for the evening for her, as Connor was an attentive and amusing companion. He told her stories of the first days of the ARC, which made her regret all the more she'd not made it to the 21st century a little sooner. She thought she might have found a place truly her own on that old team, the one Connor called, "Cleverly constructed of the greatest experts that happened to be around when they found the scutosaurus." It sounded fun and exciting to have been making it all up as they went, a little like those first months of travel through the gates when she'd discovered the freedom that came with never having to worry what anyone would think of her and not having to be polite to people she hated and getting along with the old cats and the endless rounds of calls and drives.
The dinner talk between everyone was quite subdued, but Connor wickedly told her jokes and stories about the previous years' parties and made fun of Lester and Becker and had convinced her to join him in hiding nasty bits of food that was clearly expensive underneath the salad, telling her that, if she liked, she could join him in Abby's place in picking a restaurant to go to afterward where they'd be horribly overdressed but the food would be normal. Actually, much of what was there was really quite excellent, but since Connor didn't like it, she let it go, because the game was sufficiently amusing that she'd far rather that, than listen to Becker be sarcastic and Abby snap and snarl.
Jess didn't even bear thinking of, and by the sometimes wide-eyed look on Connor's face as the girl chattered away, he seemed just as put off.
As even such uncomfortable things must end, so too did the dinner, and Connor was an utter gentleman, walking her to the ballroom, where people began to circulate and some few couples danced, slowly revolving in the middle of the floor. Of course, it wasn't dancing quite as Emily was used to seeing, with proper steps and movement, but there was a somewhat hypnotic effect of the slow swaying.
It took some effort, but Connor drew Becker into their conversation, and eventually Abby joined in as well, the three reminiscing about the previous days of the ARC. It clearly wasn't deliberate on their parts, but Emily gradually felt more and more excluded. She was just about to make her excuses, find a way to leave as she had noted Matt had done, when Connor sat up suddenly and asked her, "You did say you used to like dancing and balls, didn't you, Emily?"
Startled at the change in subject, she blinked a little, then answered, "Yes, it was the one thing I did truly enjoy with Henry. He was an excellent dancer." In spite of herself, she smiled a little at the memories. "I loved to waltz with him."
Connor's face lit up with a grin that made his dark eyes sparkle and he suddenly stood. "I'll be right back, then I'm claiming a dance with you." He swept into a surprisingly elegant bow. "M'lady."
"Huh," said Abby.
"I wouldn't have thought he had that in him," Becker said idly.
Silence descended, but a moment or two later, Connor was there and pulling her onto the floor. "Connor, I don't know. This . . . what everyone here is doing is not what I am used to."
"Trust me," he said. He placed the one hand on her hip and put her other in his own, and then the music started. It was unlike anything she'd ever danced to before, but the time was right, and Connor was, delightfully, even more competent than Henry at waltzing. He smiled at her surprise and took her into a few brilliant turns that made her laugh. "I can't do this with Abby," he said. "She's forever trying to lead."
"I can't imagine why," Emily smiled up at him as they swept past a startled-looking Lester and his wife. Indeed, the rest of the evening was a delightful blur of dancing, as it seemed Connor had said something to the young woman handling the musical choices for the evening, and there was a waltz open every few songs.
*************************************
Connor quite liked Emily. She was nice, she was never horrible to him, she never took the piss just because he was awkward and silly and liked Star Wars more than most people and because of all that, he never felt like he had to censor what he said when he was around her just because she was going to say something hurtful, because she just wasn't. Also, unlike Abby, she wasn't prickly with him when he treated her like a lady the way his Dad and Gran had dinned into his head to do.
Jess still scared him, reminding him of those horrible girls in his days in school who always walked by with their fake smiles and bright clothes and mocking laughter that thought it was tremendously funny to make him trip all over himself and get beaten up by the rugby team. Jess wasn't really like that, but she just sort of brought it to mind and made Connor wary all over again.
But Emily wasn't frightening, she wasn't mercurial and she was calm and sensible and Connor quite envied Matt for having her.
"What do you mean, she's not dating Matt?" he had asked Becker a few days ago, perplexed.
Becker shook his head. "You need to get out of that lab more, Connor. They stopped seeing each other a month ago." Then the soldier wandered off to do whatever it was he did when he spent inordinate amounts of time in the armoury. Connor sometimes wondered about that man and his guns.
He was in his lab, supposed to be working on something-or-other, but he couldn't focus. All he could think about was Emily's dark hair in its ringlets, the way she smiled when she was amused, the way she'd danced at the party the night before and that she was able to be right scary like Abby, but didn't abuse it at Connor's expense. He decided to take the risk. He hadn't liked asking girls out, mostly because he could never just say it, and saying, "Do you want to go on a date with me?" was gauche and got you laughed at. But Emily was a proper Victorian lady, and that meant he could ask her in a way that meant he didn't even have to be in the room to mess it up.
He opened up Google and quickly found the information he'd been looking for, and on the way in to the ARC the next day stopped off at a flower shop to get just the right ones. Emily had her own locker now, and Connor left the flowers there, a small card with his name on it attached.
*******************************
Emily got into the ARC that morning to an intriguing surprise. The small posy attached to her locker was one she had seen during her first season when she was at balls and young gentlemen tried to court her. In concert, the flowers asked her a question. Did she want to go walking with the sender, and could he pay his address to her? Attached to the flowers was a small card, reading only, CT.
In this time of tremendous forwardness, she had to admit that it was clearly rather odd. But it was also sweet and a little hesitant, just like Connor Temple.
There wasn't a chance for her to say anything, because the anomaly detection device went off and they were running about, herding up a couple of giant sloths loose in Hyde Park. At the end of the day, however, she finally had the chance to catch up with Connor, carrying the flowers.
"That's a bit of an odd bouquet," Jess said frankly, looking at the flowers in some dismay. "Who'd spend the money on that?"
Connor poking around on one of the computers in the hub, looked up and flinched. Emily walked over to him and smiled, tossing to Jess over her shoulder, "It means a lot more than just looking pretty." When she got to Connor she added, with her own frankness, "But you'll never make it as a flower arranger."
His smile was nervous as he said, "Well, it's not something I've done much of, yeah?"
"I'd love to go walking with you, Connor."
She quite decided that making him smile was a reward on its own, the way it lit up his face.
******************************
They went walking, Connor suggesting that she just see London as it was now and then maybe decide what she wanted to see more of from this exciting new future she found herself in. One waking date turned into two, turned into going to the movies and renting a car to take Emily driving in the country.
Then it turned into teaching her to drive, because she told him she'd be damned if she was going to eternally rely on everyone else to get her about, used as she was to being able to take a carriage or go riding to anywhere she wished.
It was brilliant, Connor decided, dating a woman who actually thought he was funny.
*****************************
The whole world was full of exciting possibilities she'd never imagined, and Connor was, perhaps, the ideal young man to show them to her. Unlike Matt and Becker, he could shift from perfect modernity to what was now an old-fashioned sort of gentlemanly behaviour, but he was scrupulous at treating her like a real person, and unlike those two, also simply assumed (rightly so) that she was better at taking care of herself in the field than he was.
For the first time, those ridiculous childish romantic novels about falling in love made sense to her, and Connor's brilliant smile filled her dreams.
There was one thing, however, that she'd discovered about this century. With utterly reliable forms of contraception, all the old taboos about ladies not having relations before marriage had relaxed, precisely because the problems that came from it were, for the most part, obviated. She knew Connor thought her beautiful, he told her often and sent her emails of pictures of arranged bouquets telling her the same. He certainly was fit and quite handsome. But he was always very careful to never do anything she might find presumptuous when it came to that, and after some . . . interesting girl's nights in with Jess, Emily decided she would do something about it.
She asked to see his flat, curious about where he lived and what it was like, wondering if it was like Jess' or Matt's. It was, all over again, different from theirs. For one thing, he had pets, two illicitly kept diictodons he called Sid and Nancy. They were both ugly and adorable, and Emily smiled fondly at the way he played with them, laughed at the way he showed off his television and gaming system proudly, and joined him in watching a film he called a classic, called Jurassic Park.
"I really don't know why no one wants to watch it with me," he commented idly from where he sat beside her. "I mean, the special effects hold together as well today as they did then, and I'm pretty sure they got the raptors not to badly off from reality, all things considered."
The idiot children in the film were waving around their torches, apparently hoping the tyrannosaurus rex would eat them, when Emily decided she couldn't stand it anymore. Connor was in the middle of a sentence when she turned and kissed him. He was still and silent a moment, then his arms moved around her almost convulsively, and when he kissed her back, Emily thought she finally knew what all the romance novels were talking about.
Three hours later, naked and dishevelled, relaxed and nearly tingling from Connor's lovemaking, she laughed as he raced around the flat, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts trying to corral Sid, who'd come into the room to watch, while she laughed from the bed and cuddled Nancy, Emily knew what all the novels talked about were lies, because this was so much better.
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