Across The Borders Of Time (7/14)

[deeperwonderment]

Title: Across The Borders Of Time
Author: not_from_stars
Artist(s): danceswithgary and whuffle
Media Link: DancesWithGary and Whuffle
Word Count: 37,255
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het and Slash
Rating: R
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Hilary Becker, Danny Quinn/Connor Temple
Summary: Captain Becker was forced to watch as Abby, Danny and Connor went through an anomaly to prevent Helen Cutter from destroying mankind. After Connor is hurt, Danny sends Abby ahead of them to stop Helen no matter what she has to do. Unfortunately, after killing Helen, Abby returns to the site of the anomaly -- only to watch it close before she can go through it. This leaves Abby trapped in the Pleistocene with no way of getting back home, and with no way of letting the people who love her know that she's alive.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is an AU of the last episode of Series 3 and into Series 4.
Author’s Notes: This story has been a labor of love, emphasis on the labor part. I want to thank my beta and cheerleader, enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. danceswithgary made me an awesome wallpaper I use on my netbook and a matching icon and she was so infinitely patient with me as I struggled with this story, I want to make sure she gets her thanks for that. I want to thank whuffle for making me extra pretties to go with this and also want to thank whuffle and morrigans_eve for adding their encouragement to that of enochiansigils so that I could stick to writing this.






Abby had to leave her shelter in the trees when the Australopithecus tribe that survived Helen’s attack took offense to her being there. Considering what had happened to the other tribe not too far away, she couldn’t blame them for not trusting a creature that they didn’t recognize.

She wasn’t exactly sure where she was going to go from here, but in the interest of staying alive, she was more than happy to get out of the territory of the wary Australopithecus tribe. She didn’t want to hurt them and really didn’t want them to hurt her.

She would much prefer that she found her way back to her own time with no serious wounds.

She traveled for awhile, hoping to come across other anomalies, but that never happened. The first few weeks, she tried talking to herself to keep herself focused, but all too soon that only made her feel like she was losing her mind.

She got used to the silence a lot quicker than she expected. With nothing to distract her, she was able to learn how different animals sounded and how to tell when one of them was hunting or if they were just moving from feeding area to feeding area. It didn’t take long for her to figure out migratory patterns and like every other predator, she learned to follow the herds of plant eaters from season to season.

She counted time by sunrises and sunsets, and wrote down each one in one of the empty journals that had been in Helen’s pack. After she had counted thirty days six times, she wondered if this kind of existence had been what had caused Helen Cutter to go absolutely insane.

There were times that it would have been easy for her to give up, or for her to let her grip on sanity fade away like Helen had done. However, every time she was tempted to just give in to the urges to become more unhinged than she was already, she was reminded that she had something Helen didn’t have.

She had people that loved her waiting for her to find her way home.

She had Becker. Captain Becker with the dark eyes and the fierce protective instinct. The man that loved her completely.

She had Danny and Connor. They loved her, too.

There were Sarah and Jenny and Lester.

These people loved her and needed her to hold onto herself as hard as she could until they could get to her or she could get home.

Even stranded so far in the past and away from those she loved, she had to remember that she wasn’t ever alone.

She had them.



It was a year ago today...

Becker couldn't help the sharp stab of pain that went through his chest as he realized what the date was. He made a pretense under normal circumstances of not realizing how much time had passed since their three friends had disappeared, but anyone that knew him was well aware of the truth.

He was well aware of every minute and every day that had passed since they went through the anomaly after Helen. He was even more aware that with every day that passed, people were losing hope about their survival.

He refused to go down that path. He knew that all three of his friends were still alive. He believed that they would one day make it back home. It didn't matter to him that all four missions to find them had ended in failure. It didn't matter to him that people were telling them that they couldn't still be alive.

He knew that they were still alive. He knew in his heart that Abby was alive. He couldn't allow any doubt of that to creep in or it would destroy him.

What he didn't understand is why they couldn't find any sign of Danny, Connor or Abby in the future that the anomaly led them to. There were no signs of Helen Cutter, either.

That led to a series of questions that no one had the answers to. He didn't like unanswered questions and he really didn't like not knowing what had happened to his three friends when they disappeared through the anomaly. People just didn't disappear without a trace and he wasn't about to let anyone believe that of their three missing friends.

Something had happened once they arrived in the future. Something had altered all of their plans and caused them to be lost.

Becker wasn't going to rest until he knew what had happened and he found their missing people.

Unsurprisingly, it was Sarah who started putting new clues and ideas together. She had been studying Helen Cutter's journal since she had disappeared and their team disappeared after her. She was the one that came to him with a new theory about what had happened once they reached the future. She waited, double and triple checking all of her theories against the information they had. However, it soon became obvious that she needed to share her theory with the rest of them.

She paced nervously in Lester's office as she talked to him, Becker and Jenny.

"I think I know why we aren't able to find any of them in the future -- and it has nothing to do with the future predators getting the drop on them," she said, not really looking at any of them.

"What do you think happened, Sarah?" Jenny's voice was calm as she looked at her friend.

She took a deep breath and met Jenny's eyes. "I think that they're lost in the past somewhere."

There was silence as her words were absorbed.

"What makes you think that, Ms. Page," Lester asked in his usual voice -- after making sure that the door to his office was firmly closed against anyone else hearing their conversation.

She held up Helen's journal. "Because of this. Over and over again, Helen makes reference to site 333 over and over again."

"Site 333?"

"The site where it's believed the first humans evolved from," Jenny said quietly. "Scientists have long believed that it's where Australopithecus took their first steps to evolving into modern day humans."

Sarah nodded. "Scientists call them the First Family and Helen talked about that site at length -- although, later her comments about the place was anything but positive."

"How so?"

"Helen seems to think that Site 333 is where everything with this planet went wrong," Sarah said slowly. "She wanted to change that."

"Change?" Jenny's face went pale. "Oh my god."

Sarah nodded and Becker looked between the two women. He didn't like what he was reading in their expressions, or the fear that was starting to grow in his stomach.

"What?" He demanded impatiently. "What are you thinking has happened?"

"I think Helen has decided to go back into the past and destroy humanity." Sarah said carefully. "I think she decided to put a stop to the evolution of humanity since she thinks that it's one of the worst things to ever happen to this planet."

"Doesn't the woman realize that if she wipes out humanity, she wipes herself out as well?" Lester's voice was full of disbelief.

"Either she doesn't care, or she thinks that she can travel through another anomaly and prevent her own demise."

Becker sighed, letting the back of his head hit the window. "If they knew she was going to do that, they wouldn't have hesitated. They would have chased after her, no matter what the risks were."

Sarah nodded. "If not to safeguard humanity..."

"Then to make sure that we were protected," Jenny finished. "They never would have come back here unless they had been able to stop her."

"They wouldn't have wanted to take that kind of risk with our existence." Becker agreed. "Damn it."

"So this means that we have been looking in all of the wrong places for them, then," Lester said, leaning back in his chair. "Because none of them would have taken time to leave us a message or come back here to tell us that there had been a change of plans." As much as he liked to gripe about them, Danny, Connor and Abby were still his people and he knew how much they cared about him and the others. If they thought there was danger to them the three would be heroes wouldn't have taken the time to alert anyone else.

"And since we're still here, that means that so far, they've managed to stop her and get in the way of her plans."

"That doesn't explain why they haven't come back, yet, though," Jenny pointed out.

"Maybe they can't," Sarah ventured. "If they haven't come back, it could mean that they've become trapped somewhere in the past."

"Then you believe that instead of being dead in the future, they are trapped in the past?" Lester was positive that they could see the headache that was starting to build.

"It does make sense."

"When they went through the original anomaly, it was with the understanding that they were going to stop Helen no matter what the cost," Becker acknowledged quietly. "If she ran into the past, they wouldn't have stopped to think before following her."

"They were aware of the risks," Lester sighed. "Although, I'm not sure any of us realized that she would have decided to go into the past to destroy everything."

"Known or not, the simple fact of the matter is that Danny, Connor and Abby are trapped somewhere in the past and we have no idea how to get to them and bring them home." Jenny's voice was cool.

"If they are even still alive," Lester pointed out. "They could have stopped Helen but have very well been killed when trying to find a way back."

"They're alive," Becker's eyes were dark as he frowned at Lester. "They're still alive. I would know if anything happened to Abby. I would know."

"Be that as it may, Captain Becker, the Minister is going to want some kind of assurances or proof that we know what we're talking about. He is not going to let us try to open anomalies and send out missions into the past when we don't even know where in the past we're trying to go." He held up his hand. "Yes, we know -- or think we know -- that Helen Cutter was planning to go to this Site 333 to stop the evolution of humanity; in all probability, by killing them. However, we know Helen. We know that since she was being pursued, she wouldn't make it easy for our people to follow her."

"She would have gone through different anomalies to different points in time so that our people wouldn't have an easy job of following her."

Jenny rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Of course she would. She also knew that as soon as she murdered Christine Johnson, someone from our team would be after her. She had to have known that we wouldn't allow one more death from her -- and she was well aware that we still wanted her to pay for the deaths of Stephen Hart and Cutter."

"My concern is that she did this on purpose." Sarah's voice was quiet.

"What do you mean?" Lester's eyes were fixed on her.

"Well, she knew that they would follow her to the future after she killed Christine. She knew that they simply wouldn't let her get away after everything she had already done." She let out a breath. "She knew they would come after her and she knew that they would keep hunting her if they knew what her plans were. It wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility to say that she led them into the past with the intention of trapping them and keeping them from returning home. It would be like her to pour salt into the wound, so to speak. Let them know what she planned to do and then trap them in a way that they wouldn't be able to interfere in her plans."

"That might have been her plan where Abby and Connor were concerned, but Danny is an unknown entity to her. She wouldn't risk some grandiose plan when there was someone she didn't know that much about involved. All she knows about Danny is that he's the new team leader." Becker shrugged. "She would know how to get to Abby and Connor on an emotional level, but not Danny."

"Purposefully trapping them somewhere would still work because she knows he's the team leader," Jenny argued. "She would know that it would drive Danny crazy not to be able to get Abby and Connor back home. He'd want to get himself back, too, but his focus would be Abby and Connor because he feels responsible for them."

"I really hate that woman," Becker muttered.

"An emotion that we all share, I'm sure," Lester's voice was dry. "What this seems to be coming down to is that we need a new plan. Obviously leading risky operations into that future time is not going to help find our people. We need to come up with a different course of action that will allow us a great deal more success than anything in the last year has done."

"You need to hire more people, James," Jenny said briskly. "At least one new field leader and a few more soldiers. Set them to being the ones that go to each anomaly alert so that the three of us can concentrate solely on research and getting to Danny, Connor and Abby. It would take us less time if we didn't need to be the ones to drop everything and run out the door each time there's an alert."

"Becker can make sure that men are trained to deal with anything that comes through so that he doesn't have to be at each incursion or opening," Sarah added. "I can focus more on Helen's journal, as well as notes in Connor's computers in order to figure out how to open up anomalies to a certain place and time. Helen figured out how to do it and I know that Connor was working on it. We no longer have the artifact from Cutter, but we still have all of this notes and research, as well."

"It appears that you have this all decided without any need for my input." Lester pointed out.

"We need you to keep the Minister and anyone else he sends here off of our backs and out of our business," Jenny responded. "We can't make this work if we're having to stop every five minutes to explain our actions to some idiot who has never set foot out of an office and into a field situation."

Lester raised an eyebrow at Jenny. "I've never been out in the field."

"Perhaps not, but you have seen what can happen when the wrong person has access to everything and you have a better understanding of what we're doing because you have been in charge of the project for the last four years."

"It's not the most perfect plan, but it's a plan," Becker agreed. "It's a hell of a lot more than we've had up until now. We have an idea where to look and we have an idea of what that woman was trying to do. What is left is for us to trace her actions and movements to find our people."

Lester waved his hand dismissively. "Go, get to work. I'll take care of the Minister and his meddling people."

"Are you sure you can take care of them with this one, James," Jenny asked in concern. "It's probably going to get a bit messy. "

"I can handle the bureaucrats right now, Miss Lewis. You focus on the other bits. "

Jenny nodded and left his office just as quickly as she could to catch up with the rest of her team. They had hope and that was a damn sight better than what they'd had this morning.



Chapter Six || Chapter Eight