Time Entangled (6/9)
Sep. 2nd, 2011 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deeperwondermentTitle: Time Entangled
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
not_from_stars
Artist(s):skylar0grace
Media Link: Art Here
Word Count: 24,395
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Connor Temple, Stephen Hart/Abby Maitland
Summary: Having worked for the Anomaly Research Center for a few years, Nick, Stephen, Tom, Abby, Connor and Claudia thought they had seen everything. But when an incursion turns out to be people instead of rampaging animals, that's not the only shock they get. Abby and Stephen are the first on the scene when Abby and Connor come through the anomaly. Abby and Connor are from a time line where some things have gone horrible wrong. Now, not only do they have to convince this time line's version of their friends what has happened, they need to find their way back to their own home and time line. Back in their world, Becker, Danny, Sarah and Jenny are working frantically to find a way to locate their friends and bring them home. Armed with two years of notes and several journals, they're doing their best to open an anomaly and get their loved ones back because they know something that the other time line doesn't. They're running out of time.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is a complete AU and there should be no spoilers for anything.
Author’s Notes: I want to thank my beta and cheerleader,enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. skylar0grace made me lots of awesome art to accompany this fic and I can't thank her enough for everything she did for me!
Becker looked dubious as he examined the different scientific instruments that Sarah had strewn out over the table in Jenny’s flat. Even knowing Connor like he did he hadn’t realized that one person could have so many items that didn’t clearly show what it was they did. If it hadn’t been for the suspicion he caught in Danny’s eyes, he would have thought that he was the only one of the group that had absolutely no idea what it was that he was looking at. Unlike Danny, however, he didn’t reach to pick up anything from the table. First of all, he didn’t want one of the women to smack him for touching the wrong thing. Second of all, if something on this table was going to be crucial in getting Abby and Connor back home finally he didn’t want to take the risk of accidentally breaking anything.
When Sarah smacked Danny’s hand and retrieved whatever it was he was holding, Becker was glad he had gone with his first instinct. Women and scientists – you don’t touch their paraphernalia without their express permission.
“What is all of this?” Becker finally asked as he watched Sarah and Jenny examining certain things on the table. Every so often, Sarah would write something down in the notebook she was holding.
“Most of this stuff came from Connor’s locker, his flat and stuff that was stored in Cutter’s old office,” Jenny responded. “We’re hoping that something – or even a few somethings – from all of this will help us figure out a way to open an anomaly to the last known whereabouts of Abby and Connor.”
“What if they’re not there,” Danny questioned. “We know from Connor’s journals that they’ve been traveling through any anomaly that opened up in hopes of getting back home.”
Jenny gave him an exasperated look. “Then we look for clues at their last coordinates and we keep trying to open anomalies until we find them.”
“It sounds crazy,” Danny cocked his head as he looked at the two women.
“It’s nothing any crazier than things that you’ve already done, Quinn,” Jenny retorted. “So, in reality, this plan is exactly like something you would think up.”
Becker shrugged. “As far as I’ve understood it, we all make our living off of crazy. This idea seems to fit into the job description quite tidily.”
“The last way that you could describe any of this is tidy, Becker,” Sarah commented as she reached for something on the table that no one else could identify. “However, we’ve already gone through a comprehensive list of tidy and sane. I think it’s time we resort to crazy. It’s the only thing that we really have left.”
“I don’t care whether it’s crazy or tidy,” he said honestly. “I only care about whether it will work or not.” He looked at Jenny. “Will any of this work?”
“It will work,” Jenny said firmly. “It will because we won’t accept anything less. They needed to come home long before now and knowing that Abby is in trouble makes it a more desperate situation. James gave us clearance to do whatever we have to do to insure that this works in our favor.” Her expression gentled as she met his eyes. “Hilary, we will get them back and we will get them back soon. We’re not going to lose Abby and we’re not going to let anything happen to Connor.”
“How will they know,” Danny asked, his voice strangely quiet. His three companions turned to him with questions in their eyes. “How will they know we’re coming for them this time? It’s been over two years and we haven’t been able to make contact with them before this. So, how do we know this time will work and how will they know that we’re trying to find them?”
Sarah smiled slightly. “Because it’s us and it’s them, Danny. They both know us so well and know we would never give up on them. Connor has said so in his journal. They may not have been able to find their own way home, but they have faith in us finding them no matter how long it might take. They know.”
“It’s taken too damn long,” Becker murmured. “It’s taken us too damn long, already. Everything we have tried up until now has always ended up with them being just out of reach.”
“Yes, it has been,” Jenny agreed. “The point is that we have kept trying and we have never stopped looking. They will know this and even if they have started to lose hope in their chances of success on their own, they would never give up hope or belief in us and we are not going to let them down.”
Danny sighed, running a hand over his face. He was tired. He was just so damn tired of fighting and failing the ones he cared about over and over again. He had failed them two years ago and he had failed them each and every time an anomaly had opened and they weren’t there. For two years they had fought and studied and had lost good people in doing so. Now, it was hard to feel optimistic, even in the face of Connor’s own words that spoke about his faith in all of them to bring them home.
“So you think they will be looking over their shoulders all of the time for an anomaly to open?” Becker’s question was an honest one. “No matter what they’re doing now, you really believe they keep looking for one to open up to the correct time? They know better than anyone how unstable and unreliable these things are.”
Sarah gave both men an impatient look. “You have got to be kidding me,” she snapped. “Two years of fighting and searching and you two pick now to lose hope? You two decide to pick now to give up on them?!”
“It’s not that we’re giving up, Sarah,” Becker protested. “It’s just that we’ve been wrong so many times before and we’re tired. We’re tired of letting them down and we’re tired of being slapped in the face with our failure to protect them or rescue them.”
“So do something about it and quit asking pointless questions that aren’t getting us anywhere!” Jenny’s voice was almost a growl. “We have all of this equipment to make sense of and a finite time to do it in! If the two of you have given up on them, you can just get the hell out of here and Sarah and I will figure this out ourselves. We don’t have room in our schedule for any doubts and Abby doesn’t have time for them! Either help us or go the hell home with your tails between your legs and wait for hopelessness to destroy you.”
Sid’s shout of Abby’s name caught everyone off guard enough to freeze them to the spot and that would be the reason that when he grabbed for Nancy, his knees buckled as he went to the floor to break her fall.
“Abby,” he whispered. “Abby, love, it’s all right. It’s going to be okay.” He managed a yelp of surprise as she was lifted up from his lap and he was pulled off of the floor by his arm. He started to fight until he saw that Cutter had picked her up from the floor and laid her on the couch. It was Stephen who had pulled him to a standing position. He shook the other man off and went to kneel next to the couch, his hands ghosting over her face.
“What’s wrong with her,” Ryan asked, his eyes suspicious as he looked at Nancy’s pale face. “What’s happened that you’re not telling us?”
“You mean besides the fact that Helen Cutter pretty much destroyed our lives over and over again?” Sid demanded. “Besides the fact that she has either killed or caused the deaths of people we cared about and then kidnapped the two of us from our own time?” He looked at Lester. “How could you? Stephen being a bloody git I can understand –“
“Hey!” Stephen wasn’t amused by Sid’s definition of his character. Yes, he had cheated on Nick with Helen at one time, but in the end, he had chosen Nick and when he got involved with Abby, a great deal about him had changed.
“—but you, Lester? I always thought you were much smarter and more practical than that. I mean, you married a barmy murdering bitch with delusions of grandeur that are bigger than anyone’s I have ever met. You’ve always been so meticulous and careful.”
Sid ignored Stephen’s protest. He wasn’t concerned about stroking the other man’s ego at the moment. He had more important things to focus on.
Lester merely raised an eyebrow at Sid and then looked around the room at all of the people who worked for him.
“I think someone needs to tell me what’s going on here, and why two people we know nothing about were removed from ARC property,” he finally said dryly.”And let me be perfectly clear that your jobs are riding on my satisfaction with your explanation.” He looked around the room and his eyes fell on Cutter, who shrugged.
“As I told you years ago, Lester,” Cutter said with a wry smile. “If you don’t like something I’m doing you’re going to have to shoot me.” It was an old, familiar joke between them, but they weren’t prepared for Abby’s emotional reaction.
“That’s not funny at all,” she snapped at Cutter. “Haven’t you listened to anything that they’ve been saying, Cutter? You did get shot and by someone that we’ve all been working with. You died.”
“Only, according to them, we weren’t working with her at the time,” Connor said helpfully, trying not to wince under Abby’s glare. “Not that it makes the fact that you get killed any easier to deal with, I’m just saying that in their world we don’t really get betrayed by someone we trust because they never trusted her to begin with.”
“And that makes it so much better,” Claudia muttered in a voice filled with annoyance, shaking her head.
“Well, it kind of does in a way,” Ryan said quietly. “At least we exist here and they weren’t betrayed by someone they worked with for a long time.”
“Dead is still dead.” Claudia retorted. “It doesn’t matter how it happened.”
“No, but it’s less painful than knowing that someone we know killed us. Better to just not exist.” Ryan was feeling pragmatic because it was the one thing he could feel like he was on even ground about.
“I’m waiting,” Lester reminded them, brushing a speck of imaginary dust off of his jacket.
“In our world, Helen Cutter caused the death of Stephen and she killed Cutter.” It was Nancy’s breaking voice that answered him. “She helped create a race of super predators that hunted by sonar and she helped destroy the future. She blew up the ARC on more than one occasion. She used a woman as a hostage to escape incarceration and then murdered her by feeding her to future predators.” She tried to sit up and Sid sat behind her on the couch to prop her up and then wrapped his arms protectively around her. “She used me as a hostage to kidnap Connor out of our own time and we spent a year and a half being dragged through one prehistoric anomaly after another. We haven’t seen our home in over two years and if it hadn’t been for Connor taking such careful notes, we would have lost track of what era we were trapped in.”
Lester just gave her a bland look while the rest of the people in the room had to fight to regain their composure. At least now they had their answers as to why the two doppelgangers looked liked they had been going through hell. If what they were saying was true, they hadn’t been in a normal, safe atmosphere for a long time.
“I see,” Lester finally responded. “And where is she now?”
“She’s very dead,” Sid said, and there was a current of steel in his voice as he met Lester’s eyes.
“How did she die?”
Ryan almost didn’t want Sid to answer Lester’s loaded question because he could see the response in the other man’s eyes. He wanted to protect his people from everything that had happened to this different, traumatized Connor and Abby. That wasn’t all, though. He wanted to wipe that hard anger from the other man and he wanted to fix the pain he could see in the other version of Abby. There was more to come; more that they hadn’t told the group yet, and all of a sudden, he didn’t want to know any more. He knew that he wasn’t going to like what was revealed.
Not one of them were going to like what was revealed in the next few moments. That was a guarantee.
“I killed her,” Sid said very carefully after a few moments. He never looked away from Lester, but his arms around Nancy had filled with tension.
Five || Seven
Author:
not_from_starsArtist(s):
skylar0graceMedia Link: Art Here
Word Count: 24,395
Fandom: Primeval
Genre: Angst; Het
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Abby Maitland/Connor Temple, Stephen Hart/Abby Maitland
Summary: Having worked for the Anomaly Research Center for a few years, Nick, Stephen, Tom, Abby, Connor and Claudia thought they had seen everything. But when an incursion turns out to be people instead of rampaging animals, that's not the only shock they get. Abby and Stephen are the first on the scene when Abby and Connor come through the anomaly. Abby and Connor are from a time line where some things have gone horrible wrong. Now, not only do they have to convince this time line's version of their friends what has happened, they need to find their way back to their own home and time line. Back in their world, Becker, Danny, Sarah and Jenny are working frantically to find a way to locate their friends and bring them home. Armed with two years of notes and several journals, they're doing their best to open an anomaly and get their loved ones back because they know something that the other time line doesn't. They're running out of time.
Warnings/Spoilers: This is a complete AU and there should be no spoilers for anything.
Author’s Notes: I want to thank my beta and cheerleader,
enochiansigils, for holding my hand through this and not letting me give up. skylar0grace made me lots of awesome art to accompany this fic and I can't thank her enough for everything she did for me!Becker looked dubious as he examined the different scientific instruments that Sarah had strewn out over the table in Jenny’s flat. Even knowing Connor like he did he hadn’t realized that one person could have so many items that didn’t clearly show what it was they did. If it hadn’t been for the suspicion he caught in Danny’s eyes, he would have thought that he was the only one of the group that had absolutely no idea what it was that he was looking at. Unlike Danny, however, he didn’t reach to pick up anything from the table. First of all, he didn’t want one of the women to smack him for touching the wrong thing. Second of all, if something on this table was going to be crucial in getting Abby and Connor back home finally he didn’t want to take the risk of accidentally breaking anything.
When Sarah smacked Danny’s hand and retrieved whatever it was he was holding, Becker was glad he had gone with his first instinct. Women and scientists – you don’t touch their paraphernalia without their express permission.
“What is all of this?” Becker finally asked as he watched Sarah and Jenny examining certain things on the table. Every so often, Sarah would write something down in the notebook she was holding.
“Most of this stuff came from Connor’s locker, his flat and stuff that was stored in Cutter’s old office,” Jenny responded. “We’re hoping that something – or even a few somethings – from all of this will help us figure out a way to open an anomaly to the last known whereabouts of Abby and Connor.”
“What if they’re not there,” Danny questioned. “We know from Connor’s journals that they’ve been traveling through any anomaly that opened up in hopes of getting back home.”
Jenny gave him an exasperated look. “Then we look for clues at their last coordinates and we keep trying to open anomalies until we find them.”
“It sounds crazy,” Danny cocked his head as he looked at the two women.
“It’s nothing any crazier than things that you’ve already done, Quinn,” Jenny retorted. “So, in reality, this plan is exactly like something you would think up.”
Becker shrugged. “As far as I’ve understood it, we all make our living off of crazy. This idea seems to fit into the job description quite tidily.”
“The last way that you could describe any of this is tidy, Becker,” Sarah commented as she reached for something on the table that no one else could identify. “However, we’ve already gone through a comprehensive list of tidy and sane. I think it’s time we resort to crazy. It’s the only thing that we really have left.”
“I don’t care whether it’s crazy or tidy,” he said honestly. “I only care about whether it will work or not.” He looked at Jenny. “Will any of this work?”
“It will work,” Jenny said firmly. “It will because we won’t accept anything less. They needed to come home long before now and knowing that Abby is in trouble makes it a more desperate situation. James gave us clearance to do whatever we have to do to insure that this works in our favor.” Her expression gentled as she met his eyes. “Hilary, we will get them back and we will get them back soon. We’re not going to lose Abby and we’re not going to let anything happen to Connor.”
“How will they know,” Danny asked, his voice strangely quiet. His three companions turned to him with questions in their eyes. “How will they know we’re coming for them this time? It’s been over two years and we haven’t been able to make contact with them before this. So, how do we know this time will work and how will they know that we’re trying to find them?”
Sarah smiled slightly. “Because it’s us and it’s them, Danny. They both know us so well and know we would never give up on them. Connor has said so in his journal. They may not have been able to find their own way home, but they have faith in us finding them no matter how long it might take. They know.”
“It’s taken too damn long,” Becker murmured. “It’s taken us too damn long, already. Everything we have tried up until now has always ended up with them being just out of reach.”
“Yes, it has been,” Jenny agreed. “The point is that we have kept trying and we have never stopped looking. They will know this and even if they have started to lose hope in their chances of success on their own, they would never give up hope or belief in us and we are not going to let them down.”
Danny sighed, running a hand over his face. He was tired. He was just so damn tired of fighting and failing the ones he cared about over and over again. He had failed them two years ago and he had failed them each and every time an anomaly had opened and they weren’t there. For two years they had fought and studied and had lost good people in doing so. Now, it was hard to feel optimistic, even in the face of Connor’s own words that spoke about his faith in all of them to bring them home.
“So you think they will be looking over their shoulders all of the time for an anomaly to open?” Becker’s question was an honest one. “No matter what they’re doing now, you really believe they keep looking for one to open up to the correct time? They know better than anyone how unstable and unreliable these things are.”
Sarah gave both men an impatient look. “You have got to be kidding me,” she snapped. “Two years of fighting and searching and you two pick now to lose hope? You two decide to pick now to give up on them?!”
“It’s not that we’re giving up, Sarah,” Becker protested. “It’s just that we’ve been wrong so many times before and we’re tired. We’re tired of letting them down and we’re tired of being slapped in the face with our failure to protect them or rescue them.”
“So do something about it and quit asking pointless questions that aren’t getting us anywhere!” Jenny’s voice was almost a growl. “We have all of this equipment to make sense of and a finite time to do it in! If the two of you have given up on them, you can just get the hell out of here and Sarah and I will figure this out ourselves. We don’t have room in our schedule for any doubts and Abby doesn’t have time for them! Either help us or go the hell home with your tails between your legs and wait for hopelessness to destroy you.”
Sid’s shout of Abby’s name caught everyone off guard enough to freeze them to the spot and that would be the reason that when he grabbed for Nancy, his knees buckled as he went to the floor to break her fall.
“Abby,” he whispered. “Abby, love, it’s all right. It’s going to be okay.” He managed a yelp of surprise as she was lifted up from his lap and he was pulled off of the floor by his arm. He started to fight until he saw that Cutter had picked her up from the floor and laid her on the couch. It was Stephen who had pulled him to a standing position. He shook the other man off and went to kneel next to the couch, his hands ghosting over her face.
“What’s wrong with her,” Ryan asked, his eyes suspicious as he looked at Nancy’s pale face. “What’s happened that you’re not telling us?”
“You mean besides the fact that Helen Cutter pretty much destroyed our lives over and over again?” Sid demanded. “Besides the fact that she has either killed or caused the deaths of people we cared about and then kidnapped the two of us from our own time?” He looked at Lester. “How could you? Stephen being a bloody git I can understand –“
“Hey!” Stephen wasn’t amused by Sid’s definition of his character. Yes, he had cheated on Nick with Helen at one time, but in the end, he had chosen Nick and when he got involved with Abby, a great deal about him had changed.
“—but you, Lester? I always thought you were much smarter and more practical than that. I mean, you married a barmy murdering bitch with delusions of grandeur that are bigger than anyone’s I have ever met. You’ve always been so meticulous and careful.”
Sid ignored Stephen’s protest. He wasn’t concerned about stroking the other man’s ego at the moment. He had more important things to focus on.
Lester merely raised an eyebrow at Sid and then looked around the room at all of the people who worked for him.
“I think someone needs to tell me what’s going on here, and why two people we know nothing about were removed from ARC property,” he finally said dryly.”And let me be perfectly clear that your jobs are riding on my satisfaction with your explanation.” He looked around the room and his eyes fell on Cutter, who shrugged.
“As I told you years ago, Lester,” Cutter said with a wry smile. “If you don’t like something I’m doing you’re going to have to shoot me.” It was an old, familiar joke between them, but they weren’t prepared for Abby’s emotional reaction.
“That’s not funny at all,” she snapped at Cutter. “Haven’t you listened to anything that they’ve been saying, Cutter? You did get shot and by someone that we’ve all been working with. You died.”
“Only, according to them, we weren’t working with her at the time,” Connor said helpfully, trying not to wince under Abby’s glare. “Not that it makes the fact that you get killed any easier to deal with, I’m just saying that in their world we don’t really get betrayed by someone we trust because they never trusted her to begin with.”
“And that makes it so much better,” Claudia muttered in a voice filled with annoyance, shaking her head.
“Well, it kind of does in a way,” Ryan said quietly. “At least we exist here and they weren’t betrayed by someone they worked with for a long time.”
“Dead is still dead.” Claudia retorted. “It doesn’t matter how it happened.”
“No, but it’s less painful than knowing that someone we know killed us. Better to just not exist.” Ryan was feeling pragmatic because it was the one thing he could feel like he was on even ground about.
“I’m waiting,” Lester reminded them, brushing a speck of imaginary dust off of his jacket.
“In our world, Helen Cutter caused the death of Stephen and she killed Cutter.” It was Nancy’s breaking voice that answered him. “She helped create a race of super predators that hunted by sonar and she helped destroy the future. She blew up the ARC on more than one occasion. She used a woman as a hostage to escape incarceration and then murdered her by feeding her to future predators.” She tried to sit up and Sid sat behind her on the couch to prop her up and then wrapped his arms protectively around her. “She used me as a hostage to kidnap Connor out of our own time and we spent a year and a half being dragged through one prehistoric anomaly after another. We haven’t seen our home in over two years and if it hadn’t been for Connor taking such careful notes, we would have lost track of what era we were trapped in.”
Lester just gave her a bland look while the rest of the people in the room had to fight to regain their composure. At least now they had their answers as to why the two doppelgangers looked liked they had been going through hell. If what they were saying was true, they hadn’t been in a normal, safe atmosphere for a long time.
“I see,” Lester finally responded. “And where is she now?”
“She’s very dead,” Sid said, and there was a current of steel in his voice as he met Lester’s eyes.
“How did she die?”
Ryan almost didn’t want Sid to answer Lester’s loaded question because he could see the response in the other man’s eyes. He wanted to protect his people from everything that had happened to this different, traumatized Connor and Abby. That wasn’t all, though. He wanted to wipe that hard anger from the other man and he wanted to fix the pain he could see in the other version of Abby. There was more to come; more that they hadn’t told the group yet, and all of a sudden, he didn’t want to know any more. He knew that he wasn’t going to like what was revealed.
Not one of them were going to like what was revealed in the next few moments. That was a guarantee.
“I killed her,” Sid said very carefully after a few moments. He never looked away from Lester, but his arms around Nancy had filled with tension.
Five || Seven
