Alyse

I has committed Fic.

2009-11-15T11:09:20Z

And committed is the right word.

Last night, I got a text from moonlettuce that can be summed up as 'save me from shitty DJs and their insistence on playing ::shudder:: dance remixes of every classic song that's requested of them'. After rejecting my first suggestion of 'kill it with fire', I was left with no alternative but to text her something to cheer her up.

Text her 24 times with something to cheer her up, because while Claire can text me random porn and fit it into one text message apparently my inability to be concise affects my 'it's almost midnight and I can't believe I'm writing Tyler/El Blanco porn' texting abilities as well. (And let me say now that you haven't lived unless you have experienced Claire's 'it's the end of the month, how can I use my remaining text message quota' texting of random porn to you.)

So below the cut is 700 words of Tyler/El Blanco porn. For those of you who have not yet experienced Claire's OTP, the fandom is Tremors: The (TV) Series, and Tyler is one of the main leads. And El Blanco?

Is the worm.

'Ware complete crack below.

Once Upon a Time...

Once upon a time there was a young prince called Tyler. He lived in what once was a lush valley called 'Perfection', but the name didn't suit now - the ground had turned dry and all of the cattle were mysteriously dying.

His father, King Bert, had his own theories about what was causing the drought and the loss of his favourite rare steaks. "It's all the government," he said. "Can't trust those devious bastards! That's why my rec room is tin-lined, god damn it!"

"But, daddy," said Prince Tyler. "You are the government." He pressed one shapely hand to his forehead in thought. It had to be said that 'thought' was not Prince Tyler's strong point but he was very, very pretty. "Something else must be causing it. I will ride out on my trusty steed and intervest... invester... Find out what is going on!"

Prince Tyler rushed to his steed - a totally sweet and top of the range Harley because he was a prince after all and King Bert did like his son to have all the best *cough* toys - and set off for the desert. He rode all day and he rode all night, well for quite a few hours anyway, until he reached the cattle grounds.

There were still a few cows there, doing want cows do when no one was around, i.e. plotting world domination and working on evolving opposable thumbs, and Prince Tyler stepped off his bike and surveyed them. He wasn't sure exactly what 'surveyed' involved but he'd read the term in one of his cowboy romances and figured it was the kind of thing he should be doing.

As he watched, one of the cows, which had been eyeing him rather malevolently, suddenly let out a high pitched lowing sound - and that was the right term for cow sounds according to 'Porn on the Range', which he'd totally read for *cough* research purposes - and disappeared underneath the ground.

Prince Tyler blinked.

And then he blinked again.

And then something large and decidedly phallic pushed its way out of the earth. It had tentacles. Three of them; they were very large as well and waved in the dry desert air.

Prince Tyler blinked a third time and then he swallowed nervously.

"Monster!" he said, because he wasn't quite that slow on the uptake. "Monster, I have come to best thee in combat so that you will leave our cows in peace."

The tentacles whipped in his direction as though the monster was using them to see Prince Tyler and the young prince swallowed nervously again. They really were quite impressive.

They were even more impressive up close, snaking towards him rapidly and seizing hold of Tyler's ankles before he could even unsheath his weapon. But that was okay because the monster unsheathed his weapon for him. "Oh," said Tyler. And then, "Oh," again as the creature took his measure. And then, "Oooooh."

They wrestled for hours on the hot desert sand until Tyler's body burned with sweat and his fine clothes were reduced to nought but rags. In the end, though, our heroic prince was forced to admit defeat.

"I yield, monster," he said and the monster let out a soft almost purring sound as its tentacles moved over Tyler's body more slowly now, almost gentle. One brushed over the entrance to Tyler's body, and the prince let out another soft, "Oh!"

Our prince may have read many cowboy romances but romance was sorely lacking from his life. It was not, therefore, a surprise when he yielded there, too. He stroked his strange lover's pale skin as his lover stroked into him.

"I will call you El Blanco," he said. "That's cowboy for the White One." His lover merely grunted and made sure Tyler wasn't interested in talking after that.

There was, of course, some opposition from King Bert to their unusual union but after Tyler pointed out that with El Blanco around they no longer needed to worry about the cows staging a revolution, he soon came around.

And they all lived happily ever after. At least until the mpreg, but that's a (horror) story for another time.

The end

-o-

Scarily, this is also not the first time I have written this pairing either, and for that I totally blame mmom and Claire, and since mmom is in fact Claire's idea and Claire's baby, that means I blame Claire. For oh so many, many things.

♥ babe.

Shakin' Ma Pimp Cane once again

2009-11-07T23:37:19Z

Does anyone remember Patrick Duffy? You know, the guy who played Bobby on Dallas and the Man from Atlantis. Yes. That Patrick Duffy.

Apparently these days he spends his time discussing issues of world shattering importance with his best friend, things like 'what's facebook' and 'America's Top Model' and my personal favourite - Patrick Duffy and The Crab discuss threesomes.

Yes. The Crab. No, that's not a cutesy nickname. And I am so utterly gutted that nominations for this year's Yuletide have already ended because right now I'm slashing Patrick Duffy with a puppet crab. And it is to ♥

Thankfully all of these brilliant insights into the human (and crab) condition are documented on one nifty channel on youtube. Go watch. I've already had aithine giggling at me over IM.

Fic: What My Lips Have Kissed (Primeval, Jenny/Sarah, PG)

2009-11-06T23:49:52Z

Title: What My Lips Have Kissed
Author: alyse
Recipient: lsellersfic
Prompt: Prompt 3: Something inspired by Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnet which starts "What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why".
Pairing: Jenny/Sarah
Rating: PG
Length: ~1,800 words
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I do not own Primeval. Impossible Pictures do
Author's Notes: Pinch hit for lsellersfic. Sorry, you had to wait this long, hon.

Thanks to aithine for the read through.

Summary: Sarah sees her.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

-o-

Jenny's house gets cold in the winter. It's empty now that Anthony has moved out, and so is her bed now that he no longer shares it. If she's truthful, it's more the concept of him that she misses than the reality - someone to hold her when it's dark; someone to wake up to.

Anthony was never very good at that supportive boyfriend thing, but the more time that passes, the less Jenny remembers it.

-o-

It's not Cutter's fault that her relationship broke down. It was the hours she worked, the emphasis she put on her career, the fact that Anthony felt neglected.

Her fault, except for the fact that it wasn't her fault either. It was easier to paper over the cracks between them when Anthony asked and she gave without question. Easier to think that the foundations were solid when nothing came along to shake the house.

No, it wasn't Cutter's fault that it ended, but sometimes she forgets that, too.

-o-

She really, really hates the name 'Claudia'. And each time Cutter slips, each time he calls her by someone else's name, she hates it just that little bit more.

-o-

She didn't believe Cutter at first, what with his talk of changes to time and knowing someone else with Jenny's face. The man was clearly insane, touched in the head, a poor lost soul adrift on the sea of reality. This face was hers. It had always been hers. It was the face she saw in the mirror each and every day. She knew every wrinkle; every imperfection; every freckle that she smoothed out with expensive creams and foundations, blending it all away. She knew exactly where upon this head the six grey hairs were, carefully hidden behind the dark dye that was touched up religiously every six weeks.

She knew this face. The idea that she had a doppelganger running around, someone whom Cutter had known... it was ridiculous.

And then Cutter's equally mad wife had looked at her, looked through her like she was a particularly interesting specimen but no more than that, and then called her by another's name.

-o-

According to Anthony, she used to primp and preen in front of the bathroom mirror for far too long in the morning. He'd shower first then read the paper in their expensive and rarely used kitchen while she prepared herself for the day. Neither of them ate breakfast; they weren't very good at the domestic thing. She should probably have taken that as a sign.

She showers quickly now, the steam filling the air, on the way to one anomaly site or another, or to bury herself in the bowels of the ARC. She doesn't take the time to swipe the water droplets from the mirror while she dresses and combs her wet hair.

But still, sometimes, she catches a glimpse, foggy and unclear. The eyes that look back are wide and startled, and the hair isn't pinned back into a neat chignon. It curls in little wisps on the forehead as it dries.

She doesn't recognise herself but maybe that's because it's not her she sees.

-o-

She sees Claudia in Cutter's eyes each time he looks at her. Maybe that's why she tries so hard to get him to see her - Jenny - instead. But each offer of a drink, each conversational piece, each witty remark sails by him.

He looks right through her sometimes, and she hates him for it.

He looks right at her sometimes and she doesn't think she's there.

-o-

When Anthony walked out of the door for the last time, convinced that she was betraying him with someone else, it hurt but not as much as she expected. The accusations weren't a surprise. In Anthony's world, when she was no longer there when he needed her, when he wanted her, there must have been someone else. The idea that she might have been the 'someone else' hadn't occurred to him. It was a measure of her messed up life that that was actually a refreshing change.

She has no idea how Claudia Brown would have dealt with it, but Jenny Lewis dealt with it by doing what she always did when life didn't roll out as planned.

She got up, brushed herself off and bought herself a ridiculously expensive pair of shoes.

She was wearing them the first time she met Sarah Page.

-o-

She knows how Cutter feels about her - she's a constant reminder of the past, of all that he's lost. Abby and Connor have a distracted kind of affection for her, something that's lost in whatever tangled thing there is between them. Stephen... Stephen never had much time for her even before he died, and Lester has too much time for her. Too much time and too much for her to do.

That's probably why it takes her a while to realise what's so different about Sarah.

Sarah sees her. Sarah sees her.

-o-

Sarah is smart and funny and as much of a workaholic as Jenny is. Cutter may lock himself away in his office for hours at a time, working on his model, all tangled and twisted threads, but Sarah's outgoing and gregarious. She prefers it out in the main office, with the rest of them, rather than closeted away with the dour and withdrawn Cutter, and she's an actual adult, which - as fond as Jenny's grown of Abby and Connor - Jenny finds an immense relief. It makes a change, not shepherding children around, even though dealing with Sarah some days feels like herding cats.

Jenny's used to that by now. But.

But.

Cutter still doesn't see her; perversely, that means it's Cutter that Jenny wants.

She must be part cat as well, to be so bloody awkward. At least she has that much in common with Sarah.

-o-

Then Cutter dies, murdered by his mad ex-wife, and everything starts to fall apart. Connor is lost, throwing himself into rebuilding the ARC as though he believes that if he does, if he manages to put it back together again, Cutter will walk back through the door, whole and unbroken.

But all the king's horses and all the king's men can't fix this. It's beyond Jenny's capability, certainly, and she leaves Connor to Abby to deal with; it's Abby who comforts him, Abby who makes him stop and eat. Abby who drags him home, makes him sleep. And it's probably Abby who holds him at night, when the loneliness is at its worst and the grief overwhelms him.

Jenny sleeps alone. She mourns Cutter, in her cold and empty bed, but the thought that keeps her awake is: now how am I supposed to know who I am?

-o-

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it doesn't stop Sarah. Even after Jenny's left the ARC, even after she's walked away, her head held high and with every intention of starting to live her life like it is hers again, Sarah keeps in touch.

It's texts at first. Casual invites for drinks 'just to catch up'. Jenny's worked for the Government for long enough to be suspicious of Sarah's motives but she's been in PR for long enough for 'networking' to be second nature. Plus, she's more than a little curious herself.

The drinks turn into dinners, then invites to other things - plays that Sarah thinks she will like, concerts that Sarah just happens to have tickets for. Movies that are 'must see'.

Jenny is far from stupid, but it takes her a long time to figure out Sarah's angle. She expects to be pumped for information, or enticed back to work for the ARC. She expects to be turned into a shoulder to cry on, someone with whom to share the things that Sarah can't share with anyone who hasn't signed the Official Secrets Act. But the confidences don't come, and while Sarah keeps her up to date with the comings and goings of her ex-colleagues, she's just as interested in what Jenny is up to as she is in sharing the details of her life.

It's not until the fifth or sixth dinner down the line that Jenny realises that they're dating.

It says something that she's more amused than surprised. She's just not sure what it says.

-o-

Jenny went to an all girls' school. And if those fifth form practice 'snogging' sessions so that they knew how to kiss boys when they finally got a chance carried on until sixth form and into University, well... Everyone experiments now and then. It's simply satisfying a natural curiosity.

Sarah leaves her curious, and Jenny is only part cat, after all. Besides, curiosity isn't the only thing than can be deadly. If nothing else, the ARC taught her that.

-o-

Sarah went to a local comprehensive, then six form college, then University. Sarah is passionate about her work, about the past, and her eyes light up and her hands dart around when she talks about it. Her enthusiasm makes Jenny smile, and that's something she's grateful for - finding the ability to smile again.

Sarah has a sweet tooth and has to work every day to keep her weight down because she can't resist a second chocolate biscuit with her morning coffee. And Sarah needs that coffee to function - she's a night owl, and on the mornings when she meets Jenny for coffee, before work, she yawns her way through the conversation, eventually descending into a sort of sleepy, contented silence, her eyes lidded and her face still smooth with sleep.

But even half asleep, Sarah sees her.

After a while, Jenny starts to look back.

-o-

The first time she kisses Sarah, it's on a bright spring morning, just after Sarah has covered another delicate yawn with one thin, shapely hand. Sarah lets out this little squeak of surprise; it seems that even Sarah hadn't realised that they'd been dating. And that amuses Jenny - the fact that Sarah, for all her curiosity and her cat-like tenacity, could be surprised.

Sarah tastes of chocolate and coffee, of sleep and summer warmth. Her eyes are wide open, dazed and dazzling. "Oh," she says, and Jenny kisses her again, swallowing down the purr Sarah lets out as she melts into her.

-o-

Sarah steals the covers but Jenny doesn't mind. The house is warmer now the weather has changed, and her bed is no longer empty.

She'd kick Anthony so he'd roll over in his sleep, stealing the covers back when he moved. But now she presses up against Sarah, and steals her warmth instead.

The End

Understanding (Primeval crack!fic)

2009-11-05T22:04:52Z

Title: Understanding
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Challenge: New Pairings on primeval100
Pairing: Lester/to be revealed at the end of the drabble. Scarily, this is not the first time I have written this pairing.
Warning: 'ware crack!fic tag.
Rating: PG
Word count: 100
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.

-o-

The pressures of working long hours in a stressful job meant that a man sometimes needed companionship, a strong shoulder to lean on in times of crisis. Thankfully, Eleanor Lester was everything a high-level civil servant’s wife should be: cultured, elegant, discreet.

His lover wasn’t. Where his wife had soft, yielding curves, his lover was powerfully muscled, with a broad, hairy chest for James to lean against. Eleanor’s scent was light, vanilla; his lover’s was musky and dark.

As his lover’s breath huffed against his ear, and a flexible trunk wrapped around his cock, James thanked God for understanding wives.

Fic: Pricking Thumbs (Primeval, Helen/Nick, R)

2009-11-05T00:27:09Z

Title: Pricking Thumbs
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Helen/Nick
Rating: R
Spoilers: Set post 2.7
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~3,000.
Status: Complete
Author's Notes: Written as a pinch hit for the primevalathon Primeval Ficathon for blktauna, whose prompt was Nick and Helen facing off when he catches her spying on him. Verbal fighting, physical fighting and angry sex follow.

Many thanks to aithine for the beta services.

Summary: Something wicked this way comes.

-o-

Stephen had teased him more than once about being a creature of creature comforts. It wasn't a strictly accurate description - you didn't make professor in their field without serving time in the field - but he'd got what his friend and colleague had meant.

He loved the thrill of discovery, the way that bones took shape under his carefully wielded brush, inch by painstaking inch. He loved watching the past emerge before his very eyes, and he'd shared that love first with Helen and then with Stephen. But there was also no denying that at the end of each day what he looked forward to was a hot shower and a meal he didn't have to hunt and kill but just unwrap and nuke. All the comforts of home.

Stephen, though... Stephen had been different. While Nick stumbled over rocks, hands gesturing wildly as he tried to talk and walk at the same time, Stephen had moved through the world with sleek grace, his feet settling firmly on the ground with each carefully placed step. Stephen climbed mountains, walked through jungles, tracked beasts that were almost as deadly as the things they dug up had been. Stephen, who was as at home in the wild as Nick was in his en suite bathroomed, centrally heated house of brick and mortar.

Stephen had stalked through the world through the world like a predator. He'd had at least that much in common with Helen.

And now he was gone, predator turned prey. But he'd taught Nick something at least.

He'd taught Nick how to spot when he was being hunted.

-o-

At first it was subtle - a shadow in the darkness where one shouldn't have been, a light left on when he could have sworn he'd turned it off, papers disappearing from his desk where he'd left them. But when he glanced back, the street was empty and the papers turned up on the couch instead.

He put it down to stress. He was jumpy, hardly surprising given Stephen's death and Claudia's loss. He was imagining things, seeing Helen everywhere when she was long gone by now.

But Helen didn't do subtle for long. She never had. The signs started to add up, the spoor unmistakable. The stink of Helen's presence, laid over Nick's life.

Stephen had taught him how to spot when he was hunting, but Helen had taught him how to lay a trap.

-o-

He talked to Connor first. He thought he'd have talked to Connor first even if Stephen had still been alive, at least about this. It wasn't all about Connor's technical know-how either. Stephen would have mocked him, with varying degrees of heat, and dismissed it all as paranoia, even knowing Helen as he had. But Connor... Connor listened and asked questions and went off at wild tangents. But then Connor knew something that Stephen had never quite grasped.

Connor didn't have Stephen's predator's instinct but that was no use when it came to Helen. When it came to Helen, you had to think like prey.

So if Connor thought his request was strange, a little paranoid, he didn't say so. For all Nick knew, in Connor's world it might have made perfect sense and it wasn't like the boy was ever going to pass up the chance to be Q to Nick's James Bond.

He had to admit that the solution that Connor came up with was elegant in its simplicity: a hidden webcam linked into a small movement sensor, cannibalised from one of those sentry toys Nick has seen advertised to children. Once triggered, the images would be taken every few seconds and saved to an external hard drive attached to his home network.

All he had to do was wait.

He'd always been more patient than Helen.

-o-

Connor had configured the software to neatly title all of the pictures with the timestamp; they were laid out in a logical, numerical order, second after second after second, like the zoetrope Nick had had as a child. Spin it fast enough and it looked like the pictures were moving.

He clicked through them one by one and Helen wandered through the detritus of his life, touching things she had no place touching, not any longer. When he'd reached the end, he closed all but the best of the images; those he stared at for a long, long moment, looking for something, anything, a sign of weakness, of regret in her face. But the camera was cheap and fairly low quality and the outlines blurred and grainy; Helen remained as aloof, as unreadable as she had always been.

His finger clicked 'print' again and again. When he picked the images up from the printer, the ink was still wet around the edges and it left dark smudges on his fingertips. They stayed even after he rubbed his fingers on his jeans, marking him indelibly.

He left them on the desk for her.

-o-

There was something in the air when he got back that night, something like a scent, faint but still recognisable, and his stomach clenched, fierce and frightened all at once.

She was waiting for him in the study, all fluid lines and grace, draped over his office chair like she still belonged there. She didn't. There was very little of her left in this house now; he'd never believed in shrines.

He'd loved her once. It was strange to think that now.

He stood in the doorway, just looking at her, taking everything in. She'd changed her clothes - a neat, skirted suit had replaced the ripped leathers, worn and torn, that she'd been wearing the last time he'd seen her. There was something subtly wrong about her outfit, something out of place, even here in his study, which had never exactly seen couture - maybe it was the shape of it or the cut or the colour, or the way the fabric flowed and clung to her as she pushed herself to her feet. Or maybe that sense of wrongness was simply down to Helen herself.

She still favoured flashing vast amount of cleavage, he noted cynically. There would have been a time when that would have distracted him, dazzled him into submission. It had never been looking into her eyes that had worried him, hypnotising him into a sense of false confidence.

He was older now, though. Less inclined to be led around by his dick, even by Helen, who had known him once and had maybe even come close to understanding him. He didn't think she'd understand him now.

"Nick." She smiled, slow and sure, but he wasn't giving her the satisfaction, not this time. "I must admit, I thought this was slightly technically advanced for you. Let me guess," she tapped her blunt, neat fingernail on one of the photographs on the desk in front of her, "Connor?"

"What do you want, Helen?"

Straight to the chase, as blunt as he'd always had to be when she wanted to play games and he wasn't interested. She raised one perfectly arched eyebrow, not at all put off by his brusque tone. If anything, it seemed to provide her with some secret source of amusement; he knew her well enough to catch the slow, pleased smile that played around the corners of her mouth.

"How are things at the ARC? Tell me, have you found a replacement for poor Stephen yet?"

Yes, Helen had known and understood him once, and she still knew how to pack a punch - where to aim, how hard to throw it. She'd never been one for pulling them. She watched him, head tilted to one side and the light of avid curiosity in her eyes, hungry for some response.

"What do you want?" he repeated tonelessly, not willing to give her even that much satisfaction.

She let out a quiet sound, curious and amused both at once. "I need your help," she said, and when he laughed, the sound was sudden and harsh and bitter.

Her eyes narrowed dangerously, but he ignored her fit of pique, finally taking a step into the room, a step closer to her. His temper had always been his downfall.

"Help? What the hell makes you think I'll help you with your mad schemes? After..."

After Stephen, he thought, but didn't say. He didn't need to. For once Helen didn't pretend to misunderstand him. Instead she moved closer and he fought down his instinct to step away. You didn't show weakness with Helen. Not unless you wanted her to tear your bloody throat out.

She stalked around his desk and he twisted to face her, never letting her out of his sight because you didn't do that with Helen either. She didn't stop coming until she'd stepped into his personal space, like she still had a right to be there. He could smell her now, that scent of Helen - musky and heady, dangerous and alive. She didn't touch him, not yet, but she might as well have - there was barely an inch between them and still he didn't give way to her, not even when she pulled that trick of looking up at him, her expression far from demure.

"We could bring him back," she said and he jerked back like she'd hit him. "We could fix time." He could only stare down at her, transfixed and frozen. She tilted her head again, giving him that perverse, pleased little smile of hers. "Think about it, Nick. We could make it all right again."

He tried to push her off, step past her, but Helen knew him too well, knew all of his weaknesses. She stopped him with a hand to the chest.

"We could bring both of them back, if you wanted. Stephen and your Claudia Brown."

He thought of Jenny - of bright, brittle Jenny, with her shark-like smile and too high heels. Only, since Stephen's death the smile was less in evidence, and Jenny didn't wear couture now. She dressed in earth tones, muted greens and browns that suited her hair, now she'd stopped dying it, but didn't suit Jenny.

I've been feeling... different recently.

She'd disappear, Jenny. Cease to exist the way that Claudia had ceased to exist and something inside him twisted and ached, bone deep. She wouldn't be dead, not dead the way that Stephen was dead. There'd be no grave, nothing to mourn. She'd just be gone.

"You're mad," he whispered, and Helen smiled again, a cruel twist to her lips. Her fingers curled, became talons, the nails digging into the skin beneath his shirt. There was a light in her eyes, burning too brightly and fiercely, even for Helen.

"Think about it, Nick. We could find that spot, the place where everything started to go wrong. We could make it all right. And then..." The nails dug in even deeper, the pain blooming underneath her touch. "...maybe you can forgive yourself."

She was serious. He could tell that much and he stared down at her, the words stopped in his mouth by her surety. "Poor Nick," she crooned, reaching up to touch his face and he flinched back, drawing another smile. "I know how much losing Stephen hurts."

The surge of anger that rose up in him at Stephen's name gave him the strength to push her off him; she stumbled backwards, hitting the desk and steadying herself on it. She was still wearing that mocking half-smile as she straightened up, and her eyes burned.

"You bitch," he growled, the sound coming from deep in his belly, hard and tight with fury. It didn't scare Helen but then very little did; if anything, her smile grew and when she straightened up all the way, the movement was fluid, sinuous. Like a snake. "Stephen is dead because of you, because of the way you had to mess around with Leek, with everything, and you have the... the... How many more, Helen? How many more are going to die because of you? Get out! Just get the hell out!"

"Oh, Nick." She let out a laugh and it wasn't brittle, not like Jenny's these days. It was deep and amused and she was looking at him like he was a particularly entertaining pet. Dance, doggy, dance. "Always one for the social niceties." She straightened her jacket, tugging it down so that it tightened for a brief second over her breasts. "Yes, I asked Stephen to come when I realised how much Leek had lost it. But Stephen didn't die because of me. He died because he chose to save you. He died instead of you."

Her tone was conversational, like she was discussing the weather. Like it didn't matter - like leading Stephen by the dick straight to his death, like Claudia being wiped from time, like threatening to do the same with Jenny, was nothing. Like fucking around with time was nothing.

Like fucking around with him.

He was in her space, right up in her space, crowding her back against the desk and she didn't care. The light was in her eyes, but there was nothing behind it, absolutely nothing behind it but deep, dark wells where the Helen had loved once was lost forever.

"I've seen the future," she murmured, her breath ghosting over his lips. She reached up again, tracing his mouth with her fingertip, her nail catching on the dry skin, chapped by the weather, cracked and sore. He didn't stop her - he couldn't stop her, mesmerised by everything he no longer saw, frozen by his anger and her hunger for things that had nothing to do with him. "I've seen the future, Nick, and it's all gone."

Her nails dug in again, sharp and suddenly, and they cut the inside of his mouth. He jerked his head back and swore and she laughed, low and throaty and not entirely sane. He could taste blood, as sharp and metallic on his tongue as the sound of her laughter as it rattled around inside his brain.

"It's all gone," she whispered, and her lips brushed over his mouth, feather-light and treacherous, burning where he bled. "But we can bring it back."

She believed it - the vicious, conniving bitch actually believed that she could play God. In spite of everything. In spite of Claudia, Stephen. Nick himself.

"You're mad," he whispered against her touch and there was a kind of awe in it, even mixed in with the furious rushing of blood in his ears. "And I won't help you, Helen."

She bit him, no finesse in it, not this time, and her fingers grabbed his hair, holding him steady while she licked the blood from his lips, her body shaking against his - with rage or fear or laughter, he couldn't tell. They were all blended into one, blended into the entirety of Helen, like a whirlwind or a hurricane and just as destructive.

He swore against her mouth, trying to pull away, but she pressed harder against him, wrapping herself around him, her fingers still knotted tightly into his hair, holding him steady while she ravaged him, teeth and talons ripping into his flesh. Her skin was hot under his hands when he tried to pry her off, fever hot, and eight years of surviving creatures more dangerous than he'd ever be had given her a wiry, slippery strength.

He couldn't pull free, but he could punish her. Punish her and himself, because that was something they'd always been good at, even when things between them had been good.

Hurting each other.

She writhed against him, her mouth open against his, hot breath huffing out against his skin. She was laughing still, or panting, or both, her fingers tugging at his clothes, tearing them. The fabric of her skirt tore under his grip, his fingers curled into the fabric. He wasn't tugging but he didn't need to, not when Helen was moving. Not when Helen was this strong and holding on was all that he could do.

She pushed him away and held him close, legs wrapped around his thighs while her fingers busied themselves with his zip. There was no finesse in her this time, either; when the zip yielded to her, her look was one of savage victory, distorting the lines of her face into something demonic.

He didn't deserve anything less. Neither of them did.

Stephen was dead, and Claudia was gone, and Jenny was left an anxious, ghostlike shell.

He let Helen eat his heart, what was left of it, swallowing down her hunger and giving her all of his pain and his grief in return. When he thrust into her, it was fierce and furious and empty, but her howl of triumph echoed through the house they'd once shared.

Afterwards, he pulled away, leaving her lying on the wreckage of the photographs in the desk. His fingers shook as he did up his jeans, and she pushed herself up onto her elbows, languid and sated. Her skirt was tangled up around her waist and his come was drying on her thighs; he'd never thought he'd hate her, but he hated her now.

"Nick," she purred, almost serene, and licked her lips. It wasn't subtle. She'd got what she'd come for - or thought she had, which amounted to the same thing for Helen.

"I'll give you a head start," he said and she frowned, her brow furrowing as she sat up, suddenly twitchy and cautious, like a cat. "Twenty minutes and then I'm calling Lester. I think he'd like to talk to you. I think he'd like to talk to you very much."

Her expression changed, became baffled, thwarted. Dangerous, but he couldn't care about that now, not when he itched for a shower, something to wash this away, wash all of this away, when all he wanted was the creature comforts that Stephen had once teased him about instead of this creature he'd married.

"Twenty minutes," he repeated and her expression hardened.

"You'll regret this," she snarled, all of her serenity, her surety, blown away.

He looked at her again, really looked at her, past all of her defences, past their shared past. "I already do," he said.

-o-

After she'd gone, he called up all of the images, flicking through them, something inside him dying a little more with each one.

Then he deleted them, emptying the trash when he'd done. He'd call Connor tomorrow. He was sure that the boy had a way of wiping every single trace of them away.

The End

Fic: Life Studies (Primeval, Abby/Connor, PG)

2009-10-31T14:25:23Z

Title: Life Studies
Author: alyse
Recipient: temaris
Prompt: Prompt 3: Something sweet, preferably Abby/Connor. Happy endings are wonderful..
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: PG
Length: ~2,300 words
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I do not own Primeval. Impossible Pictures do.
Author's Notes: Pinch hit for temaris. ♥ Thanks to aithine for the read through. More ♥

The premise for the story is based on the fact that, in the Primeval game on the ITV site, the log book is filled with zoological drawings of the creatures they encounter. Someone had to draw them and at one point, it's Abby who is completing the log. It makes sense to me that, with her intention to study zoology originally and her work in the zoo, she'd have at least tried to sketch the animals, from a biological perspective if not an aesthetic one ::g::

Summary: Sometimes all you need is inspiration.

-o-

Abby had always drawn. There was something soothing about picking up a pencil and simply letting it glide over the paper, coaxing out the pictures hidden there. She'd never be brilliant at it - never sell a picture or have a show - but it was a valuable skill in the field of zoology, even in these days of digital cameras and high speed photography. It was an especially useful skill now that she was on the Anomaly Project. It wasn't as though they were particularly good at capturing the creatures who came through the anomalies on film.

She traded it off with Connor, who couldn't draw for toffee but was a demon with a keyboard. He wrote the reports and she illustrated them. And edited them. And sometimes reprinted them if he'd been especially careless with his coffee. It was an odd arrangement, but it worked.

They made a good team, she and Connor, especially as he was smart enough not to criticise her work the same way.

Abby was under no illusions as to where her strengths - and her weaknesses - lay. She'd spent time studying the animals she worked with: the way their muscles worked, the structural strength provided by their skeletons, if they had them. And the end result always looked like the species, even these days. But that was the issue - her Entelodont looked like an Entelodont. It just didn't look that much like that particular Entelodont.

Which is why the picture she was sketching of Connor didn't look much like him.

"Why are you staring at me?"

"Oh," she said breezily, ripping yet another sheet off her pad and crumpling it up. It sailed across the room and landed much closer to the waste paper basket this time. "No reason, really."

Connor eyed it and then looked back at her suspiciously. "No, Abby. Really. Why are you staring at me?" His eyes flicked back and forth between the waste paper basket and where her pencil was once again poised over the paper. "Are you... are you drawing me?"

"Don't be daft." She glanced up and her gaze drifted along the line of his brow. "I'm drawing Rex."

"Oh." Perhaps it was her imagination but he sounded a little disappointed. "Hear that, Rex? You're going to be famous."

She snorted, glancing across at him affectionately. Rex chirruped softly, nudging at Connor's hand. When no food miraculously appeared, he took off, swooping down towards where Sid and Nancy were tumbling together. She watched them for a moment, and then turned back to her paper.

"You're still drawing."

"No. Really?" The outline of his jaw firmed up under her thumb, but it was off, somehow, the shading all wrong. She paused, staring at it thoughtfully, and then looked back up at Connor - or at least, at Connor's chin.

"Okay, now I'm getting paranoid." He shifted on the sofa, pushing himself up with his knuckles and then his ankle obviously twinged again, reminding him of why he was there. "Ow," he pouted, looking to her for sympathy.

"If it hurts, don't move," she said, eminently sensible advice that he ignored, pouting harder.

"I could really do with another cup of tea," he hinted, about as subtle as he always was.

She snorted, her attention firmly on her drawing pad. "Ask Rex," she said, not even looking up, not this time. She thought she might actually be on the right lines with the curve of Connor's eye. "I'm busy."

He subsided, and when she gave in and looked up, his expression was exactly the puppy dog pathetic look she was trying to capture.

Trying and failing.

She sighed, crumpling up another sheet and throwing it in the bin's general direction. It fell far short this time. "You are drawing me, aren't you?" Connor asked and she ignored him, her pencil once again falling onto the page. But when she looked up again, Connor was leaning over, balancing precariously on the couch and reaching for the remnants of her last attempt.

"Connor!" Too late; he'd reached it and tugged it towards him, smoothing it out.

"You were drawing me," he said, and there was wonder in his voice and in his face. And then he frowned, slightly, giving him that thoughtful crease between his brows that he got whenever he was working something out. "I... think."

She sighed. "It's not very good."

"No. It is. Really." And bless Connor for his rather awkward attempt at comfort. His fingers were still clutching the drawing but gently and, as she watched, he smoothed out another rumpled part of the paper.

"It doesn't look much like you."

"Well... It's still very good."

There was laughter mixed in with her snort this time, and bless Connor. He had such a good heart. There was no way she could ever deserve it.

It was a melancholy thought and not a particularly comfortable one. She did her best to shake it off.

He was still looking down at the drawing, his hair falling over his brow. Her fingers itched to push it back, just so her artist's eye could consider the structure of his face, that was the only reason. Really.

"Why are you drawing me?" he asked again, and she shrugged.

"I need the practice."

"Oh." The sound was disappointed; she was familiar enough with Connor's disappointment by now to recognise it, and something like regret twisted in her chest. He smiled at her, as sweet as he always was, as he'd always be.

"I need the practice," she whispered again, and he gave her a strange look, one that left her unsettled, a little sad. "How's the ankle?" she asked briskly, more for something to say than any other reason.

He blinked and offered, tentatively, as though he was checking it with her, "Fine?"

"Do you need anything? Some more painkillers? Cup of tea?" The lines were forming clearly now - she knew what she was doing. Looking for an excuse.

Connor didn't give her one, not this time, not the way he always did. He shook his head, his eyes still searching her face, and then he looked back down at the drawing. "You know, if you want to practice some more..." he offered, the colour rising in his face. "That would be okay. I mean," and the smile he gave her this time was sheepish, "assuming you're happy drawing my ugly mug."

He wasn't ugly. He was far from ugly - he was sweet and kind and funny and all of that showed on his face. He may not have had Stephen's model-like good looks but he was very attractive in his own way, and the thought made her blush.

"Okay," she said, picking up her pencil again. "If you insist. I'll try not to let it break my paper."

"Ha, ha," he said but he looked pleased even as his face began to burn red.

"Relax," she said. "You look like you're constipated."

"Well, that's an attractive image," and she had to laugh at the look of mock outrage on his face, catching the smile he threw back. It was so easy between them sometimes, so easy she wondered what the hell was scaring her so badly and then he went and got himself blown up in the Cretaceous and she knew.

She was still looking at him, had been for ages, and he blushed, the red blooming across his cheeks, and ducked his head. "You're still staring at me," he said.

"Kind of goes with the territory," she said. "That whole... drawing thing."

"You can go back to drawing Rex if you like."

"Nah," she said. "Between you and me, he's a bit of a diva."

Connor laughed at that, his whole body shaking and his face lighting up and sometimes she loved him so much it hurt. She couldn't capture that, could never capture that with just a pencil and paper.

She wasn't good enough.

"It will be fine, you know," Connor said awkwardly and when she looked at him he gave her another one of his sweet, slightly bashful smiles. "Whatever you do, it will be fine. Doesn't have to be perfect, right?" She looked at him, just looked at him, wondering when he got so perceptive, wondering when Connor of all people figured it all out. "You said it yourself, you just need to practice."

"What if it's too important to get wrong?" she asked and that small, confused, thoughtful frown appeared on his face again.

"Well, you just keep trying until you get it right, don't you?"

"Yes," she said, staring at him, the point of her pencil digging into the paper. "I suppose so."

"You know, Abby, I think you're worrying too much." He gave her another smile. "I'm sure I'll love it anyway," and she laughed, the pencil jumping across the paper, leaving a jagged line in its wake.

"I'm sure you will," she said. She didn't bother to hide the affection when she looked at him this time, and the flush that rose to his face again was pleased. "I just can't get it right, though."

"Do you need me to do anything. I mean, sit any way or..." He trailed off, his hands making a kind of lost gesture, hanging in the air.

"Just... be you," she said and he smiled. "Or... wait..."

"Being me isn't good enough?" He pouted, but there was no genuine hurt behind it. Instead a smile was dancing in his eyes and even though it didn't come to the surface - not obviously - she had to smile back.

"Being you is perfect." She wasn't lying about that. "Just..."

Just...

She took a deep breath, gathering her courage because she was so tired of being scared and Connor deserved better. Connor deserved her best efforts, on paper or not. "I think I need... something more," she said and stood, ignoring his confused look because if she stopped to think she'd stop, period.

He was lying on the sofa, not sitting, his ankle stretched out in front of him and that made it easier in a weird kind of way. Easier to settle herself over his lap, place her pad on his chest.

The look on his face now... she'd seen it before and tried to forget it, all of the hope and the fear and the... the love.

She raised her hand and her fingers trembled but they stilled when they touched his cheek. She traced up lightly, her thumb stroking underneath his eye, her fingers skirting along the edges of his hair...

Connor breathed in suddenly, like he'd forgotten how do do it up until now, and the movement shook her, shook a soft, breathy laugh free.

"I just need..."

"Okay," he said and hope was slowly growing in his eyes. His hands were still hovering helplessly, then he took another deep breath in and they settled on the outside of her thighs.

She licked her lips and Connor watched her, his gaze darting between her eyes and her mouth. "Getting the bone structure right is important," she said; there was a darker smudge on cheek, charcoal transferred from her fingertips, and she traced it again, more lightly this time, barely touching.

"Okay," he whispered and his breath brushed over her face.

"The cheeks, the brow..." Her fingers drifted over his skin, slow and steady, still barely grazing over the surface and he sucked in another breath, drawing her attention back to his mouth. Her fingertips followed, stopping to rest a hairsbreadth from his lips. "...the mouth," she murmured and his breath hitched, caught in his throat as she leant in.

His fingers tightened on her thighs, just for a second, as she breathed him in, his lips parting for her. He tasted sweet, like Connor, and she pulled back fractionally, shifting position to kiss the other side of his mouth, feeling him tense against her again. It was a good kind of tense, his body all fluid lines under her hands, and if she could draw him now, like this, it would be perfect.

His eyes were closed and her hands cupped his face, thumbs smoothing along his cheekbones, his eyelashes tickling against her skin.

"Connor," she murmured against his lips, the dip in his cheek. "Connor," and his hands moved, sliding around her waist, pulling her closer. But his mouth stayed soft under hers, soft and open, ready to give her whatever she wanted.

She pulled back, resting her forehead against his and his grip on her loosened slightly, his hands resting on her waist rather than wrapped around her back. "I think," he said and his voice was hoarse. He swallowed it down, then: "I think I like the way you draw."

She laughed and it shook her whole body, and his where it was pressed up against her. He gave her a delighted little smile, one that was smug around the edges, but still warm and bright and pure. That she liked - that she couldn't ever capture - but the smugness deserved something special.

She leant in closer until her lips brushed against the rim of his ear, and murmured, softly, "Just wait. It's life drawing next." She nipped at the lobe, feeling him jump as he let out a gasping little laugh. "And you know what that means."

"No." He shivered when her breath ghosted over his ear, soothing that small hurt with her tongue. She pressed closer to him, his hold on her tightening again, safe and more sure now. His hands were warm against her back and she took a moment to bask in it, just a moment. "What does that mean?"

She smiled, wicked and bright, her lips brushing over his cheek, back down towards his mouth, drawn like a month to a flame. He relaxed under her touch, and her smile deepened, something inside her loosening, too, something that had been too tight for too long.

"Nudes," she breathed, feeling him laugh against her mouth as she kissed him again.

The End

Fic: Prelude in C Minor (Primeval, Abby/Connor, PG13, angst)

2009-10-31T14:08:55Z

Title: Prelude in C Minor
Author: alyse
Recipient: dominique012
Prompt: Prompt 2: island, darkness, tea, happy.
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: PG13
Length: ~13,000 words
Warnings: Angst
Disclaimer: I do not own Primeval. Impossible Pictures do.
Author's Notes: For dominique012 who wanted Abby/Connor; angst with a hopeful or happy ending; hurt comfort; and romance. I hope this suits.

Many thanks to aithine for the beta.

Summary: Journeys start with a single step.

-o-

( Prelude in C Minor - Part One )

-o-

They keep heading south, like birds heading to warmer climes for the winter. It's further into autumn now, and the starlings are flocking, gathering on pylons and overhead cables, then wheeling into the air like dark clouds that wax and wane.

He watches them and thinks about what they once were.

-o-

Stonehenge is smaller than he thought it would be, less impressive somehow. But he walks around it anyway, along the well trodden gravelled path. Visitors are no longer allowed to touch the stones and there's no sense of history for him, no connection to the past, not even when he reads all of the information boards that tell him how it was built or when.

The stones came from Wales originally. Perhaps they were washed up here as well, even if they didn't follow the same paths that Abby and he have travelled along.

Avebury is slightly better, maybe because the stones have merged into the landscape. There are gaps where the menhirs have been removed over the years, used to build or maybe just because of superstition, and he wanders around the circle, staring down into the village.

History seems like it's been tamed here, like people have managed to stamp themselves permanently over the landscape and the past is staying where it belongs, part of a progression, past to future, no messing about. He doesn't say any of this to Abby, and Abby doesn't say anything at all.

But he likes Woodhenge best. There's nothing much to see. The wooden posts have long since rotted away, leaving just imprints like fossil footprints in the earth. It seems right, somehow, and it weirdly it makes it easier to sit on the grass, close his eyes and visualise what it once must have been like.

Abby sits beside him, her arms wrapped around her knees again. She's shivering slightly and he moves over, closer to her, an instinctive sharing of warmth that isn't all about the Cretaceous.

She gives him a strange look but doesn't move away.

“Connor...?"

He makes a sound, some kind of affirmative that he's heard her, but his eyes are fixed on the landscape. Now that the signs aren't obvious - no huge, non-native rocks thrusting up to show that man was once here - he perversely wants to see some sign, a hillock or outline of a ditch that shows him the past.

“I'm sorry," she says and that gets his attention. He looks at her, frowning. Things are still weird between them, a little off, a little stretched and strained, but he should be the one apologising, again, not her.

She shrugs, the skin of her neck flushing slightly, but she doesn't look at him, not this time. “I... I get scared sometimes," and this is not a conversation he wants to have.

There's no escape though, and he can't help but wonder if Abby planned it that way. He may never understand her, not entirely, but she's always seen right through him. He's been running and she's been letting him, only now she's closing the door.

He swallows. “If this is about... what I said the other night... I'm sorry."

“No," she says, then, “Yes. Well, not exactly." She takes a deep breath, and her shoulder brushes against his arm. “I... I mess you about sometimes." She looks at him now, and adds, “Most of the time."

“It's not -"

“Connor." The word comes out sharp and silences him. “I'm sorry... it's... Look." Another deep breath and he still can't see. “I... I get scared." She gives him another one of those smiles like a grimace, all nerves. tight around the eyes and mouth. “Ugly divorce, bitter mother, absent father. Take your pick. I didn't ever want that. To be that. That... vulnerable, I suppose." She picks at the picnic blanket they'd bought at a service station somewhere and doesn't look at him.

“Jack..." She trails off and then begins again. “There was only Jack and me, and I was his big sister, supposed to keep him from going off the rails." She sighs. “But he did anyway, didn't he?"

He takes the question as rhetorical and doesn't answer, shifting a little uncomfortably. Maybe he could treat all of the questions as rhetorical. It would make life easier if he didn't have to commit.

“I'm sorry," she says again and her voice is sad, quiet, and he twitches again. “I didn't mean to hurt you, it was..."

“It was just you and Jack, and Jack comes first," he says and finds a smile of his own, one she'll hopefully buy. “I understand."

“No," she says, still quiet, still sad. “I don't think you do. But then, neither did I."

-o-

“Are you still scared?" he asks her as they trudge up the hill towards another barrow. He tries not to think of death, of bones turning to dust in chambers under the ground, but it's hard sometimes.

She pauses and looks at him, raising her hand to shield her eyes from the low, autumn sun.

“I guess," she says. “I probably always will be, I suppose." She seems okay with it and he can't imagine why.

“So... So how do you cope with it?"

This time she tilts her head and the look she gives him is quizzical. Then she shrugs. “Try not to be," she says, as though it's ever that simple, and then she smiles, quick and fierce. “Race you to the top."

-o-

They end up in Glastonbury and it's full of little curio shops, catering to the tourists, all new age hippy and crystals. He wanders through them and Abby trails in his wake, rolling her eyes every now and then. She still pauses by the CD racks, though, touching the ones about whale song.

Once he'd have teased her about that. Maybe he'll store it up and they'll come back at some point, a point where he doesn't feel like he's just barely anchored to the surface of the world instead of actually being part of it.

Then he finds something in one shop and he knows he's never, ever coming back here.

It's a key chain, so innocuous, like something they've seen in all of these shops, kitschy and ugly. Only, this one's in the shape of an alien's head.

He holds it in his hand for long moments, his fingers so tight around it that they hurt. His knuckles are white and when Abby finds him eventually, hidden behind the rack, and uncurls his fingers, the palm is red, creased and marked with its imprint. She reaches up and her voice is soft, distressed, as she touches his face. It's only when her thumb smooths across his cheek that he realises he's crying.

Thankfully she doesn't buy it for him; it's weird how it's the stupid little things that stick, that mean so much. Instead, she leads him out of the door, her fingers wrapped tightly around his, and they walk, hand in hand, up the Tor.

He sits on the grass next to her, staring out over the town, as the breeze slowly dries the tears on his cheek.

-o-

Lester's talking about counselling. When Abby passes the message on, her voice is diffident, uninvolved, like she's just talking about the weather but her eyes are anxious. Stress. Depression. They're strange words. They make him think of geological pressures, of the way the tectonic plates shift, mountains forced up, magma forced through. Of cracks and crevasses forming in something as supposedly as solid as the earth, of water washing everything away and leaving nothing but hollows behind.

Maybe they're the right words after all.

-o-

It's not that the nightmares are better; it's that by now he's exhausted and sleep drags him so far under that not even the dreams can push him back to the surface again.

He thinks he still dreams but he can't remember them when he wakes up, and it's the small things you appreciate. Like the fact that sometimes when he wakes, his eyes gritty and his head fuzzy and with vague thoughts lurking on the edges of his consciousness, Abby is curled up in his bed behind him, her arm thrown over his waist.

Sometimes she gets up as soon as he stirs and heads into the bathroom, burying herself - and him - in the flurry of getting ready for the day, her face flushed as she avoids his eyes. Sometimes she doesn't, and they lie in the warm nest they've made as the pale autumn light creeps across the room and the day grows older.

It's another thing they don't talk about.

-o-

Plates shift and things crack and the pressure has to be released somehow.

-o-

Abby wakes him, calling his name and shaking his shoulder until he's dragged back into the real world, spluttering and gasping, dumped unceremoniously on the shore.

The nightmare is still lapping at him, twisting around his consciousness and trying to suck him back down.

“Connor?" Abby's face is pale in the moonlight, furrowed with concern. “Connor?"

He pushes her off, stumbling out of bed and almost tripping over the covers that have pooled on the floor in his hurry. She follows him, hovering in the background while he throws up his supper, maybe even his lunch and breakfast from the way he can't stop. He's shaking, the sweat of fear evaporating from his skin and taking all of his warmth with him, and the rim of the toilet bowl is ice cold under his grip.

She waits and he wants her to leave, doesn't want her to see him like this but he's not the kind of person who gets what they want. At least she hands him a glass of water when he's finished, his stomach aching and his knees sore. He swirls and spits and then flushes the toilet.

She's too close and he can smell the scent of her shower gel rising from her body because while she always washes her hair in the morning she also still showers again in the evening and how weird is it that he knows that?

“Okay?" she asks him, her face drawn. He nods; he's not sure what 'okay' is any more but he's on his feet and that's got to be an improvement. He moves back into the bedroom, clutching at the glass like a lifeline, and she follows him there as well.

“Are you ever going to tell me what's going on?" she asks. There's sadness in her voice and other things as well, strange harmonics that he's never been able to read because 'female' is an alien language and 'Abby' is even more so.

His pillow smells like her and he closes his eyes.

“I built the anomaly detector," he says. “Me."

“Okay," and he doesn't have to open his eyes to picture her nod, her small, serious face.

“I know Cutter figured out the interference angle but the rest, that was me."

“Okay."

He opens his eyes again and stares at the ceiling. “And the hand-held detectors, and the anomaly locking mechanism."

“You forgot the robot," she says quietly, but she isn't joking. When he looks across at her she's watching him, her chin on her knees and her arms wrapped around them. Her feet are tucked away out of sight and she looks so young it doesn't make it any easier to keep going.

“Yes," he says and goes back to staring at the ceiling.

“My hair dryer has never been the same," she says and this time it's the humour but it falls flat.

“I built it all," he says and his voice comes from a long way away, drifting back from where things are real, normal, before he learnt how to put things together.

“Are you... feeling unappreciated?"

He can hear the frown in her voice, but her tone is curious, not condemning. Not yet.

“We've seen the future," he says, “and it's fucked." She shifts position; he can hear the sheets rustle and knows she'll be leaning closer, studying his face for clues.

He keeps his eyes closed.

“Helen... Helen used that machine, the one in the future. Used it to hop around time and mess everything up, and even now she might be out there somewhere, trying to wipe us off the face of the earth. No. Off the face of time."

“And that's what you're worried about?" she asks. “Connor, we did everything we could. And we're still here. If Helen had succeeded..."

“No," he says. “You don't understand. Helen said that the ARC brought about the end of the world -"

“Helen lies. You should know that, Connor. She lies and..."

“And that machine, the one the ARC were using, will be using. The one Helen was using." He opens his eyes and looks at her, reading the confusion in her face. “The one that's messed everything up so badly." She's still not getting it.

“Who do you think is going to build it?"

Her eyes widen. She's not stupid - she's never been that - but he has to spell it out anyway, the words bubbling over even if he'd wanted to stop them, his heart breaking, shattering inside his chest and he can feel the shards digging into his skin.

“Abby... I think I'm going to destroy the world."

-o-

He doesn't want to talk about it now that it's out there, said and made real. If they don't talk about it he doesn't have to think about it but for once Abby isn't being patient with him and she isn't being kind. She keeps trying, as though that's going to help.

He's started to run out of excuses and, since she holds the car keys, he's also running out of places to run.

In the end, tired of waiting, she simply outmanoeuvres him, pulling the car into a lay-by where she climbs out. It's picturesque here, with a view and a picnic table; Abby ignores the former and sits on the latter, facing the car and waiting.

He holds out for as long as he can but it's Abby and in the end he always gives Abby what she wants. He doesn't make it easy for her, though.

“I think I should leave the project," he says, no preamble, not giving her time to launch on whatever well rehearsed arguments she'll have prepared.

She doesn't look surprised. Instead, she nods, seriously, watching him with that same unreadable look in her eye and that throws him off. “I thought you might say that," she says. “Can I ask you something?" As though him saying 'no' will stop her.

She crosses her legs and rests her hands on them, once again looking like she's settling in for the long haul, and he sighs.

“What happens... you think it's because you stay on the project, right?"

“Abby..."

“Yes?"

He nods, quickly and jerkily, just wanting the conversation to be over.

“What if you're wrong? What if it happens because you leave?"

Words have weight and these hit him hard, right in the chest, his breath catching in his throat.

It's instinctive to protest, “That's not fair." It comes out weak and breathy.

“No," she says, and again something like grief shifts underneath the planes of her face, barely hidden below the surface. “It's not."

-o-

She lets him run after that, along beaches, up hills, through forests.

But she's always waiting when he gets back, sometimes calm, sometimes not, but always present. Somehow that makes the whole running thing kind of pointless.

He stops after a while.

-o-

“Whatever you decide," she says, poking at her ice cream tub with her small, plastic spoon, “it's for both of us."

He tries to pretend like it doesn't matter.

-o-

They're still drifting, washed around by whim and the tide, when she makes an “Oh!" sound. It's genuine, not careful, and he wanders over towards her, around the carousels of tourist tat - spoons and bookmarks and Celtic decorated quaich, even this far south.

“What is it?"

“Oh." She looks flustered, her finger resting on the open, plastic covered book in front of her. It's another thing that's the same wherever they go - the local list of hotels, B&Bs and hostels that each Tourist Information branch seems to hold. “Just... can we stay here? If there's room?"

He blinks; it's not the first time she's asked that question but it's the first time she actually sounds like the answer matters.

“If you want," he offers and she smiles, a flash of brightness in what has so far been a dull and never-ending day.

-o-

It's a castle. A castle on the edge of a village, built by a Victorian with too much money and too little sense. A Folly, Abby announces, rolling the word around her mouth with obvious enjoyment. There's a small smile playing around her lips but it's genuine, unaffected.

He can't remember the last time he saw it.

'Folly' might be the right description. It's a strange, surreal place and the man who owns it - Geoffrey, with his balding pate and dandelion hair and definitely non-Somerset accent - is best described as 'eccentric'. The plumbing rattles and clanks, letting out deep groans when the shower finally splutters temperamentally into life. The windows are the original wooden sashes and stick when it's damp, and in October it's always damp. They end up leaving the one in their room wedged open an inch when refuses to shut and it lets in the cool night air.

But it sits in an acre of overgrown grounds, wild and untamed. The weather's been mild and the smell of late blooming honeysuckle drifts up to their window, carried on the breeze. Geoffrey keeps chickens and peacocks, who alternately strut and preen, and at night the peacocks scream, blending into the dreams they both have still.

They share a bed. It's not the first time they have but it should be weirder than it is. When Connor wakes - whether from the pipes or the peacocks or his own dreams - it feels normal, and he rolls into Abby's warmth and goes back to sleep.

-o-

Geoffrey's an awesome cook; it doesn't take long to get used to his hangdog face and flowery apron as he dishes up bacon that's just crispy enough and scrambled eggs that are perfect. In the afternoon, there are scones or freshly baked teacakes, eaten on the terrace with a pot of piping hot tea. He wouldn't be surprised if Geoffrey churned his own butter, because the pats he places on small saucers, alongside the thick cream, are oddly shaped but delicious.

For that, Connor can forgive the plumbing.

-o-

They don't talk about it, but they stay. Abby fans the leaflets out in front of him again and asks the question she's asked him every day since the first: “Where do you want to go today?"

For once he pays attention, sipping at his tea as he pushes them around on the table top.

“That one," he says eventually, drawn by the bright colours and the picture on the front, and she blinks at him, surprised.

“Okay," she says, and then she smiles.

-o-

Everywhere is quiet - half term isn't until the following week and the main tourist season is over. Connor likes feeling as if it's just the two of them, no one jostling or running or screaming. No crowds, no noise, no pressure.

He's not sure why he picked the caves. Maybe it was the cheesy animatronic dragon on the front of the leaflet, or maybe it's just that there's something about caves, something primal and safe. People have been hiding in them for as long as there have been people, and how can he argue with that?

Or maybe it really is the cheesy dragon. He could do with more cheese in his life, and Cheddar seems perfect for that.

Abby stays close as they walk down from the car park, and her hand brushes against his every now and then. The sky is pale, watery blue, not grey; the rains have come and gone, and small puddles have collected in the dips in the path. He breathes in deeply and this time when Abby's hand brushes against his, he catches hold of her little finger with his.

He was right about the tableaux - they are more than simply cheesy and kind of awesome because of it - but once they're away from the flashing lights and piped in roars, the caves themselves are more impressive. He wanders deeper and deeper, to where it's still and quiet and all he can hear is the soft 'plink plink' as water drips from the ceiling. All around them are the beautiful twisted shapes of stalactites and stalagmites, formed over aeons.

There are lights down here as well but they're not the flashy reds and yellows of fake fantastical beasts. They're green and blue, shining steadily in the darkness as they play across the rocks, picking out shadows and catching in Abby's pale hair so that it glimmers like the ocean.

Abby's still and quiet, too, staring out over the underground lake. The look on her face is calm, thoughtful, and when she feels the weight of his gaze on her, she turns to look at him.

She doesn't smile. She doesn't need to.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, feeling the breeze from the hidden pumps brushing over his skin. There are tonnes of rock above him, maybe half a mile or more, but for the first time in a long time he doesn't feel that weight.

For the first time in a long time he can breathe.

-o-

At the end of each day, he walks in the woods that wrap around the edges of the guest house - guest castle - kicking up the leaves that have fallen into piles of red and gold. Sometimes Abby comes with him and sometimes she waits on the terrace, held there, he thinks, as much by the prospect of Geoffrey's cooking as a concern that she's intruding.

He doesn't mind. If he gets tired of being on his own, he can head back, knowing that she'll be there waiting.

He sleeps better, which means so does she. But even better isn't perfect; sometimes the peacocks wake him or Abby shifting in her sleep. Sometimes it's the warmth of her body as she moves closer to him in the night, a heat he's just not used to, not yet.

Sometimes, yes, it's his dreams that snatch him out of slumber, but if Abby is still asleep he can lie there in the dark and listen to her breathe. And if it's late enough, or still early enough, he'll get up and wander again, listening to the castle settle around him, the timbers and the plumbing and the floors, the groans and ticks that tell him time is passing and that everything finds its place eventually.

Sometimes he makes it as far as the parlour where he sits and listens to the wind, or to the owls or the peacocks when they're in full flow. Geoffrey has a bookshelf that's as esoteric as the man himself, graphic novels wrestling for space with battered early editions of Biggles and essays in Latin. The first time he plucks a book off the shelf and loses himself in it, Geoffrey finds him there, not long after the clock has struck five.

It startles him and he stares at Geoffrey for a long moment, at the hair that's even more tousled this early in the morning and at the awful, bright purple cords that Geoffrey is wearing, ones that not even Connor would be seen dead in. And then he offers, lamely, “I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep."

Geoffrey nods, like it's the most natural thing in the world to find him here at five in the a.m. “It happens," he says briefly. “It's kind of a bitch when it does though." He doesn't seem at all put out; he seems distracted, or maybe still half asleep. “What are you reading?"

“Oh." He wonders if it's a faux pas to have made himself that much at home, especially as he's not so much reading as staring blankly at the pages. He tilts the book to read the spine and Geoffrey doesn't seem to find anything odd in that. “John Donne."

Geoffrey nods again. “No man is an island," he offers prosaically and when the words are intoned by Geoffrey, in his slow, mournful drawl, it actually sounds like it means something. “I thought I'd make pancakes for breakfast, for a change."

Connor blinks. “Oh," he says, completely thrown. “That sounds... good."

Geoffrey nods again. “I'll make bacon and eggs as well," he decides, and Connor only seems to be incidental to that decision.

“Geoffrey," Connor calls after him, as he turns and heads back into the kitchen and when he pauses it occurs to Connor that he's not quite sure what he intended to say. “Can I... is it too early for me to go out for a walk? In the grounds, I mean?"

Geoffrey doesn't seem to find anything odd about that, either. “Key's on the hook by the door," he says. “Watch out for the hens. I haven't fed them yet and they'll be right buggers until I do."

“Thanks." And then, because it seems the right thing to say, Connor adds, “They're descended from dinosaurs, you know. The hens I mean. Well... all birds, really."

“Huh." Geoffrey pauses to consider this. “That makes perfect sense."

Yes. Connor supposes that it does.

-o-

When he gets back, it's still early and Geoffrey is still busy in the kitchen, whistling off key. The other rooms are all silent, their inhabitants still lost to sleep, and he creeps along the corridor so he doesn't wake them, wincing at each creaking floorboard.

Abby is still asleep but she soon wakes up when he warms his feet up on her calves. She swats at him, grumbling sleepily, but when he wraps himself around her, stealing her warmth, she doesn't push him away. Instead, she tumbles back down into sleep with a soft sigh.

He follows her.

-o-

The days pass but they still don't move on. Instead they pore over the leaflets that Geoffrey has shoved haphazardly into the stand he has in the hall. They don't come right out and say it, but he knows that both of them are looking for places close by, ones they can drive to there and back in a day rather than find another hotel, some place else. England is a small country, and an old and deep one; they find places and excuses, and they stay.

They visit Wookey Hole and if anything it's even cheesier than the Gorge, with its own set of animatronic models and an alleged witch to boot. There isn't that sense of peace as they move further underground this time, but maybe that's because of the children who now seem to have miraculously appeared. They're everywhere he looks, loud and excited and having fun.

It might be contagious. He drags Abby into the Handmade Paper Mill as well, where the tour is dull but the activities are fun. She sighs and rolls her eyes but makes paper with him anyway, squeezing the water out of old, torn paper with a frown of concentration between her brows and her tongue stuck between her teeth.

He waits until she's not looking and scatters petals into her small frame. She waits until he turns away and scatters small paper hearts into his.

He thought he'd forgotten how to hope but maybe, just maybe, she's not as scared now.

-o-

He asks Abby how long they've got and, for once, she doesn't say anything about however long he needs. Instead, she scrunches up her face in thought, working it out.

“We've been at the ARC for almost three years," she says. “How many days annual leave have you actually taken in that time?"

He has no idea, but he breathes more easily. “I bet that went down well with Lester," he says and she gives him a searching look. It's the first time in a long time that he's actually said the man's name; he assumes Abby's still checking in each day, but he's never asked.

There's a soft sound of agreement as Abby beats him to the last scone. “I think he's just pleased he doesn't have to pay us for it instead," she says as she butters it then spreads jam neatly, al the way to the edges. “Or have us take all that unpaid overtime off as lieu leave as well." She puts half the scone on his plate. She doesn't ask him if he wants it; perhaps she doesn't need to.

“I suppose," he says, and beats her to the cream.

-o-

“Maybe," he says and then hesitates, biting at his lip. “Maybe you should ask Lester if he has anyone in mind. For the... counselling, I mean."

He doesn't look at her but he can feel the weight of her gaze on him anyway. It's more bearable than he thought it would be.

“Okay," she says mildly.

“I mean, it's not like I can just pick one of out the Yellow Pages - are they even in the Yellow Pages? Psychiatrists, I mean?" He stumbles over the word. It's something he never thought he'd use, not in connection with himself. 'Therapy' is an alien concept for someone who feels as British as he does, where stiff upper lip and simply coping go with the territory, at least until they aren't possible any more. “Because if I did, then it's not like I could talk about state secrets or anything."

“You could tell them but then you'd have to kill them."

It's actually funny, for a second.

Her fingers reach out and brush over the back of his hand and then come back, more firmly this time, wrapping around his.

She's had them in her pockets up to now, and they're warm and steady.

“I'll talk to Lester," she says.

-o-

That night it rains. He lies in the warm, soft glow of his bedside lamp, listening to it pattering against the window panes and drip down onto the sill. The scent of it is strong in the air, the smell of early autumn, leaves and smoke and damp. That open inch at the bottom of the window is enough to let in the smell of it but it keeps out most of the cold and the thick quilts keep out the rest.

Abby is an oasis of warmth curled up next to him, something concrete and real, even in the dim light that blurs all of the room's lines. She's wide awake, her pale hair spread across the pillow and her blue eyes fixed on the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the world. He can smell her shower gel again; the heat of her body scents the sheets and the air with it. When he shifts position, rising up to rest his head on his elbow and stare out into the darkness, tracking the drops that roll down the window pane, she turns her head to look at him.

Her eyes are warm and so are the fingers she traces gently over his face, across the curve of his cheek, brushing over the delicate skin in the dip beneath his eye. He switches his attention from the night to her and she stares back quietly, almost solemn. Her thumb is resting by his mouth and he turns his head, just a fraction, so that it brushes against his lips.

She closes her eyes. When she opens them again they're still warm, still deep. He doesn't think she's scared any more.

He isn't. Not of her.

This time he's the one who leans in and presses his mouth against hers, breathing in her breath. They fit together, like this. More than he's come to expect.

Her hands sink into his hair, fingers tracing over the curves of his skull, gentle and sure. She pulls him closer and he goes where she leads, cradled by the contours of her body. He thinks for a moment that he's too heavy, that his weight will crush her, but she makes this soft, disappointed sound when he begins to pull away. He kisses her again and her hands are warm when they skim over his body, sliding under the t-shirt he wears to bed and across the bare skin of his back. He kisses her again and she kisses him back, first warm and then heated.

When he first - finally - slides into her, his fingers curled nervously into the pillow and her breath hot against his face, it feels like coming home.

-o-

Abby's not there when he wakes, but he doesn't worry about it. It's late and the watery sun is already high in the sky and Abby hates lying in bed in the morning, when there are things to be done. She won't have gone far and she won't have gone without a reason, even if the reason is to clear her head.

It's strange not to have that fear hanging over his head, the idea that he's going to mess up with Abby and that will be it, no future for them, nothing to hope for, to live for. It's strange but he thinks he'll learn to live with it.

Instead he showers and then he heads down to breakfast; he's ravenous and if he waits any longer, Geoffrey will have stopped serving it, although with Geoffrey that can happen anywhere between nine thirty and twelve. When he notices the car's not there any more he tries not to let that worry him, either. If she's running... well, he'll wait until she comes back. That's all there is to it.

She gets back when he's on his second cup of tea and first round of toast and flops down into the seat beside him. There's rain in her hair and her face is flushed, bright spots of red high on her cheekbones.

Where have you been? he thinks. Why did you leave me? He was more afraid than he realised until he sees her, afraid of being wrong, again.

What he actually says, “Hey, you."

She smiles and steals a slice of toast from his plate.

“You okay?" he asks and she pauses, crumbs on her lower lip.

“I'm fine. Were you worried?"

He shrugs and the lie he tells is only a little one. “Not really. I thought maybe you needed some space or something. Time to clear your head."

She smiles again, her cheeks still flushed from the cool autumn air, and shakes her head, her teeth buried in her lip rather than her toast. “No... it's..." The smile this time is sheepish, and she lowers her eyes, glances around the room at the few other couples.

They're all immersed in their own domestic situations; none of them are interested in Abby and Connor.

Connor and Abby. Abby and Connor. He likes the sound of it whichever way around it is, and takes another bite of his toast with it ringing through his mind.

“No," she says again, “I needed something, that's all. Just..." She shoots him a sidelong glance. “We weren't that careful last night."

It takes a second to sink in and he freezes, guilt and embarrassment surging through him. “I'm sorry," he says. “I'm not used to... I didn't think..."

“It's fine." She reaches out and squeezes his hand, leaving her fingers wrapped around his. “There were two of us there, Connor. Neither of us thought."

He could have ruined their future, in more ways than one. He swallows another bite of toast but it's dry and goes down hard. “I'm sorry," he says and it's nowhere near adequate but the look she gives him now is a mixture of amusement and affection.

“It's fine," she repeats. “I went to the chemist, I took a pill, it's dealt with, okay?" She steals his tea as well as his toast and takes a sip. “I'm... just not ready for anything else, not yet."

He leans over to the next table and pinches an empty cup for himself. It occurs to him, as he pours the tea out again from the small tea pot that might not match the plates, cups or saucers but which doesn't - blessedly - leak, that they're actually having a grown up, adult conversation.

“Not used to?" Abby asks mildly, watching him over the rim of her - his old - cup and he flushes a deep red, adulthood be damned.

“No."

“And by that you mean...?" Her eyes are dancing and he has no idea what's going through her mind.

“Yes, Abby, you deflowered me, all right?" and she laughs, bright and loud, drawing attention. He kicks her under the table, just hard enough to register, and she grins back at him, unrepentant.

He smiles back.

“I... might have bought some other things at the chemist as well," she says, and the look in her eyes this time is open and affectionate, only a little scared. Her hair is still damp and tousled, and her hand is wrapped negligently around her cup where it rests on the table.

She's beautiful.

“Oh." He's blushing again, and she gives him another of those smiles, small and a little twitchy but genuine, before she looks away.

“So," she says, the colour rising to her face again and matching his. “What do you want to do today?"

He reaches out and brushes his thumb over the pulse point on the inside of her wrist, feeling her heart beat, strong and steady, under his touch.

“Go back to bed," he says.

-o-

It's better this time, now that he knows what he's doing, and Abby's sharp little cries mingle with the peacocks' outside.

-o-

They drive out to the coast and walk along the beach. Abby comes with him, her footprints next to his on the sand. It's blustery and cold, and the wind whips around, blowing icy droplets of rain into their faces, so it's no wonder that they're more or less alone. Everyone else must have more sense.

Abby slips her hand into his as she kicks up some sand, staring out into the horizon. Her fingers are cold and he shoves both - her hand and his - into his pocket.

“I was thinking..." he says. He lets go of her hand, wrapping his arm around her shoulders instead. She keeps her hand in his pocket but her nose is just as cold when she presses it against his neck.

“Dangerous," she murmurs against his skin and he ruffles her hair with his free hand before he wraps that arm around her as well. “What were you thinking about?"

“How good you look naked," and she pushes him, laughter in her eyes, so that he stumbles backwards, almost losing his balance.

She catches him; she's still smiling and he kisses her, swallowing all that joy down.

The sea is stormy, blue and green and white. He stares out over it, Abby's hair brushing against his cheek, his chin, as she snuggles in closer. “Maybe," he says against the burnished brightness of that hair. He can be brave, if Abby can. “Maybe you should call Lester... Ask him to set something up."

She hesitates before she nods, taking it all in. Her arms tighten fractionally around him but it's enough.

“Okay," she says. “Today?"

He closes his eyes and breathes in her scent. “No. Tomorrow. Tomorrow will be soon enough."

The future stretches out ahead of them.

The End

Additional Notes: Connor and Abby visit, among other places, The Great Orme in Wales, Bath, Cheddar Gorge and Wookey Hole in Somerset and the South East coast. There is actually a Victorian Folly that looks like a castle - or there was about fifteen years ago - but I took some liberties. It's not actually in Somerset but the windows do stick.

Fic: Prelude in C Minor (Primeval, Abby/Connor, PG13, angst)

2009-10-31T14:03:10Z

Title: Prelude in C Minor
Author: alyse
Recipient: dominique012
Prompt: Prompt 2: island, darkness, tea, happy.
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: PG13
Length: ~13,000 words
Warnings: Angst
Disclaimer: I do not own Primeval. Impossible Pictures do.
Author's Notes: For dominique012 who wanted Abby/Connor; angst with a hopeful or happy ending; hurt comfort; and romance. I hope this suits.

Many thanks to aithine for the beta.

Summary: Journeys start with a single step.

-o-

Lester's office is large and airy but it’s still too small to contain the man, especially not when Lester is in full flow. Connor can’t quite make out the words but he doesn’t need to. The cadences of Lester’s voice are familiar: the pauses and the breaths; the beats and the rhythms; the sarcastic twist and bite underneath. What Lester’s actually saying doesn’t matter.

What matters is the way that the glass walls seem to be closing in on him.

Connor concentrates on breathing, just breathing. It’s not as easy as it sounds; it’s not just Lester’s voice that’s burying him, piling the words on, one by one, until they weigh him down. There’s a gap to his right, where Danny should be sitting. Where Jenny should be sitting, or Nick, or Stephen.

Instead, there’s just an empty space. Just him, and he’s not enough for this.

Not for anything.

Abby’s on the far side of the room, a world and more away. She's staring down at the floor and her arms are folded across her chest, shutting everything out, shutting Connor out, too.

Connor doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t need to. He can close his eyes at any time and see her clearly: the way her hair has grown out a little now so that it once again falls into her face; the way she bites her lip when she’s thinking. The way she glares at him when he doesn’t.

He’s stopped looking. It’s easier that way. Everything is easier when you stop paying attention.

Maybe that’s why it takes a second for the silence to register.

Lester’s paused, mid-diatribe, and is looking at him in way that makes everything in Connor's chest just twist and tighten further. He can't breathe. He really can't breathe.

Lester's eyes are sharp and shrewd and they look right through him. Lester huffs and he puffs...

And all of Connor's walls come tumbling down.

There's a sharp screeching sound and, again, it takes a second for his brain to catch up and realise that it's the chair moving across the floor, shoved back as he stumbles to his feet.

“I'm sorry," he says and his hands are shaking. “I'm sorry," and Lester's eyes are narrowed, still looking right through him but at what when there’s nothing to see, Connor doesn't know. The only thing he does know is: “I can't do this any more."

-o-

Out in the main body of the ARC it's too bright, and Connor stops, shaking. Everything swirls and shivers around him. When he leans on the railing, all he can see are the workstations down below that Cutter wanted put in, the ones that Connor saw rebuilt after...

The detector’s there, too. Cutter's concept, Connor's execution and...

He can't do this any more. Not on his own.

-o-

It's dark when he comes back to himself, blinking and disorientated, still trying to breathe and sucking in air. It tastes of diesel in the back of his throat and his hands hurt. Long moments pass as he stares at them numbly, wondering why. There's no blood, not this time. Not yet.

He’s still shaking.

There's a vague memory tugging at him, sliding in through the gaps, and he rubs his hands together, feeling the palms prickle where he struck the doors open, door after door after door. It's a blur of white walls and blank faces that watched him and then turned away. There was no reason for anyone at the ARC to be concerned. Nothing was chasing him, after all.

Nothing but the past, and the future.

And the future...

He can't breathe. He can't...

“Connor...?"

He jumps. He can’t help it, and the feeling of his heart pounding in his chest isn’t a pleasant one, all stutter, stutter, stutter, mixed up in trying to breathe. Abby moves into the flickering light, and it glints on her hair, turning it white.

“Are you okay?"

He’s got no answer to that, and it’s such a stupid question anyway when Abby doesn’t normally ask stupid questions, just like Abby doesn’t ask questions she doesn’t want to hear the answer to. He can only look at her and Abby nods to herself, like he had said something but it was something only she could hear.

“Do you want me to drive you home?"

Her voice is calm and she takes a step closer. Connor takes a step back. He doesn’t even think about it - it just happens like things always happen. She just stops and looks at him, and that thing inside him twists and tightens and his breath catches, and...

“Don’t..."

Her eyes widen but that’s all, and the hand she’s stretched out towards him drops and hangs at her side, useless and empty.

“Okay," she says and her voice wavers slightly. “Okay," and she nods, quick and jerky movements that he watches numbly. Her eyes shine in the dark and it’s easier to look away. It’s always easier to look away. “Do you know where you want to go?"

He’s god knows how many feet underneath the earth, in a place that smells like diesel and death and he’s cold, so cold he’s shivering, tremors running through his body.

His voice wavers when he finally answers her, dredging the word up from somewhere deep inside.

“Home."

It comes out sounding like a question.

-o-

Abby drives.

Abby always drives when it’s just the two of them. There’s a twisted kind of logic in that, but thinking about it hurts.

-o-

It’s already dark when she pulls up outside their - her - flat. A whole day’s gone by while he’s been buried underground, time slipping away through his fingers like everything else. He stares down at his hands, like they’ll tell him why, but there’s no answer there.

They’re still clean. They’re still shaking.

“Connor...?" Abby twists in her seat to look at him, car keys dangling from her fingers.

His voice has slipped away, too.

“Are you okay?"

Stupid questions, stupid questions, stupid questions. Even Abby seems to realise it; she doesn’t wait long for an answer.

“Are you coming in?"

It’s another question and it stretches out between them, the silence shivering in the air as loud as any sound. Abby huffs slightly; when he hears it he closes his eyes, shutting everything out.

He’s so cold, and he curls up, the side of his head pressed against the car window and that’s cold, too, a sharp pain against his skin.

“Okay." And Abby’s voice shakes like she’s cold, too. “Connor... I need to know... I need to know what you want to do."

He gropes for it, but everything’s sunk down to the bottom where it’s still and quiet and the currents drag him down.

“Connor...?"

Abby’s voice cracks and he stares out of the window to where the street lamps glimmer, pools of light in the darkness.

“I want..." He closes his eyes but the lights still glow, ghost images on his retinas. “I want to go home."

There’s a soft sigh this time, and cool fingers brush over the back of his hand. “Okay," she whispers, as though it’s an answer. The word is as soft as a breath, and as meaningless. “Okay. I’ll..." Her fingers pause then pull away. “I’ll be right back, okay? I won’t be long.

“I promise."

When he opens his eyes again, she’s gone.

-o-

Abby keeps her word. It's one of the things he...

He leans against the window again, feeling her small car shake around him as the boot slams shut. It settles again when she climbs back into the driver's seat.

He doesn't look at her.

“So..." Her voice is high, brittle. “Where are heading?"

He doesn't have an answer for her and eventually she pulls away from the kerb anyway.

-o-

They hit the motorway; the lights from the other cars heading towards London stream past them, flashing in the night, shining into his eyes. Abby's clutching the steering wheel, her fingers tight and pale, and she stares ahead, focused on the road.

He stares out the side window, out to where it's dark and the only things flashing past are the road signs. The signs all read “The North" as though it's a concrete destination, somewhere to aim for.

Maybe it is.

He closes his eyes, feeling the humming of the engine vibrate through the car, the pitch of it rising when Abby accelerates to overtake, falling again when she slows and pulls in.

After a while, he falls sleeps.

He doesn't wake until they stop.

-o-

Over the years, Connor has realised that service stations are pretty much identikit, like they have three or four templates that more or less work, and they stick to them.

This one has a bridge, crossing over the motorway, and the café is on the other side from the car park. Cars stream past underneath them, nothing put rippling ribbons of light.

They could be anywhere: north, south, the surface of the moon.

They grab a seat by the window. The tea tastes the same as it does anywhere like this - vaguely like dishwater, weak and colourless, no matter how long they leave it to brew in the metal pots.

The pot leaks when he pours it out. They always do, but even though it's his tea it's Abby who mops it up, her face creased with irritation and tiredness.

He's not sure which he's the cause of. Maybe neither, maybe both.

Abby wipes her hands over her face, dragging her cheeks down until, for a second, she looks old underneath the harsh, fluorescent lights. “Where are we heading?" she asks him finally, and her voice is as drawn as her face. “You said home, Connor, and I don't..." She trails off, the irritation clear in her voice, and rubs at her eyes again. This time when she starts, the irritation is better hidden.

Connor hears it anyway.

“I guessed you meant your parents house, right?" It's gentle now, her tone, and he wonders how he looks, what she sees in his face to get her talking like that to him. She's always been more patient with animals when they're lost, when they're scared, or when they're hurting. “So where exactly do they live?"

He thinks of his mother, how she always looks as tired as Abby does now, how much him coming home like this will disappoint her, and something inside clenches again, so tightly that his stomach hurts. He pushes the tea away and stares back out the window, but there's nothing out there for him.

“Where are we?" he asks finally, and if his voice doesn't shake it's only because it comes out thready and quiet instead.

She looks at him for a long, still moment. “Somewhere near Liverpool, I think," she says. “Where do they live, Connor?"

“Lancashire," he says, and her expression droops as she works out the miles to go in her head. “I don’t... We don’t have to..."

He trails off as she looks at him, her gaze another weight he can’t bear. He can’t look back - it only hurts more. It’s easier to stare out of the window instead, watching her pale reflection wavering out there in the darkness. When he doesn't say anything else she starts drawing aimless lines in the wetness on the table.

His tea goes cold.

-o-

Abby has always been the practical one and she's practical now. She books them a room at the Travel Inn, one with twin beds. She doesn't ask his opinion about it, but he doesn't really have one; just like the service station, all of these rooms look the same to him. Same style of quilt, same pictures on the wall, same hairdryer and broken TV.

Abby dumps her bag on one bed, the one closest to the door, leaving him with the one by the window. Maybe it's a pointed little comment about how he's spent the journey looking anywhere but at her. Maybe it's because she thinks he'll run.

It's a small room. Abby's small, too - sometimes he forgets that - but she fills the space. She moves around him, almost on autopilot except for the sudden starts and stops when she realises how close they are.

They've been sharing a space, on and off, for almost three years but it's never been this space, and Abby's always been good at keeping distance between them. Those flustered jerks of hers tell him that the rhythm's off between them, as out of sync as the rest of his life. He's just getting in her way.

In the end, he lets her get on with it. He sits on the bed and waits for the world to stop ending.

He thinks he may have to wait a while.

-o-

It's not weird sleeping in the same space as Abby. It should be, but they have the Cretaceous to thank for that. He's used to the sound of her breathing, soft and deep when she's asleep, like she managed in those few stolen moments when she managed to damp down the fear long enough.

He's more used to the sound of her not sleeping and she's not sleeping now. But then, neither is he.

“Connor?"

Her voice comes out of the darkness, quiet and afraid, and he's used to that, too. They've spent so long being afraid recently that he's forgotten how to be anything else. But even now, even with his heart a heavy rock in his chest and exhaustion dragging him down, he can't shut out her fear any more than he can shut out his own.

He closes his eyes, but it doesn't help; all it does is make that band of pain around his forehead tighten further until bright lights flash across the inside of his closed lids, like cars streaming past. In the end, he does what he always does when Abby wants something from him. He gives in.

The room is dark but there's a strip of light coming through a gap in the curtain from the lights outside. It's enough to see her when he rolls over, to see her face, which is pale and set. Maybe it's the way that the light falls on her that highlights the shadows under her eyes, in the hollow of her delicate temple, but she looks washed out, ethereal, like she's not really there, like neither of them are.

“Are you okay?" she whispers in the dark. She looks old but she sounds young, like she sounded the first time he ever met her, back when all of this seemed like a great adventure.

He was so fucking stupid then, and he's too slow and stupid to find an answer for her now. Instead he says what he's been thinking, that constant refrain that's been running through his head for days, for weeks: “There's just the two of us now."

She doesn't say anything, but she dips her head and a shadow passes over her face. He waits but she's still silent so he closes his eyes again and rolls away from her to face the window, pulling the covers over his shoulder and up to his chin.

It's not just the cold he's keeping out.

-o-

He doesn't sleep well; he doesn't think either of them does. The shadows under Abby's eyes are even more marked in daylight, and he looks away guiltily, fiddling with the strings of his duffle rather than see them. “Thank you," he says and it comes out stilted. When she just looks at him he adds, flustered, “For packing my bag."

Something shifts in her face, under the surface, settling her expression into sparse lines. Something hard and brittle, like grief.

“It didn't take long," she says, her eyes dark and deep. She shrugs her shoulders but she doesn't look away. Not this time. “You didn't unpack after you moved back in."

-o-

His tea's gone cold again. He stares down into his cup, dreading what's coming next.

Abby stops pretending to eat her breakfast by pushing the scrambled eggs around her plate. She sighs and puts her fork down, pushing her hair back from her face. It needs a wash. He probably needs a shave, but this whole... thing is far from domestic.

“Are you ready to go?" she asks, and her eyes are still shadowed. He curls his fingers around the handle of his mug and watches her expression tighten, just a little. Just enough to let him know she realises he's stalling.

He can't think of anything to say. In the end, he nods, but Abby's not stupid and if she usually ignores the things she doesn't want to see, well, she's not ignoring this.

“Where are we going?" she pushes, and the irritation is creeping back into her voice. “Come on, Connor. I need an address."

He freezes but she's still there, across the table from him, watching. “I... I can't..."

He can't go home. He's not even sure where 'home' is any more. “Abby, I just can't. I'm sorry..." She's just staring at him blankly, like he's speaking in tongues and maybe he is. “Maybe we should just go back..." He stutters the words out, tumbling one after another, and he's so bloody pathetic he wouldn't blame her if she stranded him right here, left him in the middle of the motorway, miles from anywhere.

For a second - a split second - he thinks she might. Her face freezes. “Connor..." she says and he flinches. She sighs again as he looks anywhere but at her, his face burning with embarrassment and shame.

“Okay," she says and then she repeats it, more firmly this time. “Okay," and her chair scrapes against the floor as she gets to her feet, the sound making him flinch again. She hesitates for a moment, her lips parted as though she's about to say something, but then they clench tightly shut again, giving her a pinched look. The look in her eyes is shuttered, unreadable, but then he's no good at reading Abby's expression at the best of times.

Then she turns and walks away.

He watches her go, everything twisted up and tight inside him. He can't think, can't make any plans, can't do anything but think, beyond even misery, now there's just one.

He watches her go, turn the corner, disappear.

Five seconds, ten, fifteen while he's frozen, and then, then she comes back. He's too numb to even feel relieved.

She's clutching something, several somethings, and she lets go. They flutter to the table, a flurry of different colours, shining in the dim autumn light. He stares down at them, uncomprehending, as Abby sits across from him again.

“Where do you want to go?" she asks, and her voice is unusually gentle for her. “Connor?" He's still staring at the litter of leaflets spread across the table. She stirs them with her hand, bold and bright headlines yelling up at him, fun this and entertaining that and educational the other.

He finally looks up at her. He has no idea what he looks like but she gives him a smile like a wince, her eyes darting away from him before her gaze comes back.

She's scared and he doesn't understand why, not here. It's not the fear of things in the dark.

“What?"

His voice is still thin and thready and he winces to hear it, catching the tell tale end of a flinch of her own when he looks back at her. But her voice is calm when she answers him, as though it's the most normal thing in the world.

“I told Lester we were taking some time off." She shrugs but it doesn't sit on her easily. Her face is still drawn, creased with lines and underneath everything else her eyes are still scared. “So officially, we're on holiday.

“Where do you want to go?"

He just looks at her, his mind blank and his fingers still cemented to the handle of his mug. In the end, she picks one seemingly at random.

That's how they end up in Wales.

-o-

They don't make plans, not really, even though Abby's the kind of person who always makes a shopping list and tends to stick to it, not throw whatever she likes into the trolley. That's Connor, but Connor isn't doing much of anything.

The world's even more twisted up than he thought, if Abby's becoming him, someone with no common sense, all stupid impulse. Each day, wherever they're staying, she finds one of those stands with 'local information' in them and presents them to him, fanned out like a bouquet. It becomes a constant refrain: “Where do you want to go today?" He never has an answer for her - the choice dazzles him and the need to make a decision freezes him, both at the same time. So it falls to Abby - it always falls to Abby - to make the decisions for the both of them.

He knows it's not fair of him but it's not because he doesn't care. It's just that he can't care. There's nothing left of him to care. So Abby borrows his iPhone and googles Travel Inns, tracks down Tourist Information websites, asks him where they're going next.

Looks haunted when he doesn't say anything. But she keeps going, and she keeps him going as well.

“Why?" he asks her, and he can see the moment when she decides not to pretend she doesn't understand.

She looks at him for a long, steady moment and then she says, simply, “Because now there's just the two of us."

-o-

“Can I ask you something?" she asks on their way to somewhere. Her knuckles are white on the steering wheel and he waits, saying nothing until she glances at him sideways, her expression anxious. It takes a second for him to realise she's waiting for something, some acknowledgement from him that he'd heard, and then he nods.

She still hesitates, her fingers clutching at the wheel convulsively, a rhythm of flex and release that he watches silently.

“Why... why didn't you unpack?" she asks, and he should have seen this one coming but he never does, not with Abby. “I mean..." She trails off and the meaning is lost to him.

He stares out of the windscreen, watching the motorway roll back before them.

“Is it... I know I haven't been fair, Connor. I mean... I know that sometimes I... maybe I blow hot and cold, a little, and I know..."

She knows more than he does, but she trails off and her knuckles are still white on the wheel. Her voice is shivering, like she's cold and lost and alone, even with him sitting there. It should hurt more than it does.

“Is it because...?"

The miles stretch out before them, roll out behind, and he doesn't look at her, not even when he says, “Not everything is about you, Abby."

She doesn't call him on his lie, but that night, for the first time, she books them two separate rooms.

-o-

They drift back into England, heading South. He thinks of rivers, and the way they meander, taking the path of least resistance. Maybe that's what they're doing, cutting through the softest rocks and avoiding those that are too big to be moved, too hard to be worn away by their efforts.

But even with the way that they're wandering, there's a theme to the places they wash up. He's not sure whether Abby's spotted it or not, but the places they visit are old, historical. From Bronze Age copper mines to Viking settlements and everything in between. Markers of a past that he now knows is fluid and ever changing. Like the future. Like their lives.

It's like after three years of dealing with anomalies, they can't let go of visiting the past, not entirely. He's just not sure what they're looking for.

Today is Bath and the Roman Baths, and it's quiet. They aren't the only visitors but it feels like it as they wander through the rooms, both the remnants left behind and those built since.

The water is deep and green; the light bounces back from it to ripple along the terrace. Cool waves wash along the vaulted ceiling, like they're underwater, fathoms down.

Abby is silent, her expression blank, just as cool, just as mysterious as the ancient spring, and he is so far out of his depth. It's been two days and he finally says, “Sorry," the word sliding out and taking him by surprise. Maybe it's the silence that finally gets to him, or Abby's distant face.

She looks at him, her bag slung over one shoulder, and her face tilts up into the sun. Then she nods, once, like it's forgotten.

He can't forget. Not everything is that easy.

-o-

He sleeps a lot, long patches in the car where the miles rolling past lull him down into unconsciousness, or in the hotels each night, with Abby snoring softly in the other bed. Even when he's not asleep he doesn't feel awake. It's like everything is fuzzy, the world out of focus, and thinking, planning, feeling is more effort than his body is capable of.

He doesn't mind the not feeling part. It's so much better to be numb.

Even without fighting with Abby, the silences stretch between them. They're empty now, not filled with everything neither of them has ever had the nerve to say, or the things that have been said and not heard or ignored.

Everything's empty and that's better.

At least until the dreams start again.

-o-

The nightmares aren't new, and it's not like he's the only one to have them. More than once, in the Cretaceous, he'd woken to Abby twitching and whimpering softly beside him in her sleep. He'd probably woken her up more than once the same way.

This time he wakes up screaming, tangled up in his sheets, twisting and turning to get free with his heart pounding in his chest and he can't breathe, he can't breathe.

He pushes the sheets off, his hands and body slippery with fear sweat and Abby is there, holding onto him tightly even though he fights her off, panic stricken. It's no use; she's always been stronger than he is in all of the ways that matter. He gives in, shaking so hard that his teeth chatter but she still doesn't let go. Instead her fingers dig into the side of his neck, her palm resting warmly against the nape of his neck where the hairs are still prickling. She's whispering to him, a constant litany of reassurance that he doesn't hear. The sound of her voice simply washes over him and if it can't wash everything else away that's not her fault.

Not this time.

The panic finally ebbs away but it leaves all the flotsam and jetsam of his dreams behind. He's cold and Abby's warmth is the only thing anchoring him; he can't help but lean into it. Her fingers loosen, just slightly, so that they curl around his neck rather than dig into it. It's only an illusion of safety but he's reached the point where he'll take whatever he can get and he breathes her in.

There's a banging on the door, sudden and sharp in the silence, and he jerks. Abby's fingernails scratch his skin and the pain is sudden and sharp, too.

It startles the both of them; Abby's breathing fast, her face turned towards the door. It's Abby who gets up and answers it, Abby who deals with the night manager, explaining that nothing's wrong. Nothing at all is wrong.

Nothing except him.

-o-

They stop staying in Travel Inns and the like after that, where the rooms are packed in tightly and the walls are thin. Abby takes to visiting Tourist Information offices each time they stop, poring through their books, looking for bed and breakfasts or small, family run hotels off the beaten track, the ones that won't be busy at this time of year. He has no idea if she talks to the owners or not when they check in, and if she does what she says, but the next time he wakes up screaming, nobody comes.

-o-

As the days pass and he sleeps less, he no longer feels quite real. He's restless, unable to settle, and everything around him starts to feel worn, like the real world is underneath and coming through the thinner patches.

Telling himself he's being stupid doesn't help - he knows too damned well what can come through when reality cracks.

He doesn't share any of this with Abby but she can't miss his distraction, not when she has to say things three times or he wanders through places without looking at anything.

If she does notice, she doesn't say anything, but the scenery begins to change.

-o-

They hit the coast and the seagulls call overhead in the blustery autumn wind. He watches them rise and fall on the currents, always searching for something.

He doesn't feel kinship, not this time. He knows what they evolved from.

The sand crunches beneath his feet as he walks, listening to the sound of the surf as it swishes up the shore. The whole beach smells faintly of rotting seaweed, washed up by the storms, and the sky is steel grey and threatening, promising more of the same.

He stares out over the sea, close enough to the water's edge to feel the spray on his face, whipped up by the gusts that swirl over the shoreline, picking up flurries of sand and making them dance.

He's alone but for a couple walking their dogs at the other end of the beach, the two dogs - one dark and one light - chasing each other in and out of the waves. Their barks carry on the wind towards him but he doesn't smile.

He watches them for a while and then turns and heads back the way he came, superstitiously walking over the tracks he made on the way down and obliterating them.

Abby is sitting in the dunes by the car park, waiting for him, her arms folded around her knees. She waits until he reaches her and then holds out her hand for him to pull her to her feet.

Her fingers are cold and they curl around his for a moment. He lets them go and shoves his hands back into his pockets.

“Okay?" she asks and he shrugs. Maybe that's progress of sorts, that he doesn't lie to her any more, not about that.

She gives him a long, steady look, her gaze a cool weight, as cool as her fingers. “Where do you want to go today?" she asks and he shrugs again, staring out over the beach. He hears her sigh and ignores it.

“Okay," she says again but it's carried away by the wind.

-o-

The restlessness grows, day by day, but Abby tunes it out. It's weird how that acts like a sore tooth, something he has to keep poking at just to see if it still hurts, her ignoring him. Worse, her tolerating him and his moods.

But he wouldn't be him if there wasn't a point where he stopped, some line he won't cross with her. He's always been too eager to keep her happy and keep things peaceful, and it's a hard habit to break.

So they drift, each day, and if she's watching him, judging his moods, then he's watching her back.

-o-

The dreams are getting worse and with each day that his sleep slips away, so does his temper. There's no one to take it out on but Abby and Abby takes it.

That's so unlike Abby that he starts to wonder whether or not the world has changed again and he's the only one who's noticed. Abby can be kind and Abby can be patient and Abby can be calm but with him there's always been a kind of brisk and brusque almost affection, like he's a puppy and if she isn't stern enough he'll climb up onto the couch or piss on the floor.

Now she treats him like he's made of glass and he'll shatter. There's fear in her eyes sometimes when she looks at him, and it's not fear of him.

He's afraid that the world has changed and he's the only one who's noticed.

He's afraid of going to sleep.

-o-

This time when he dreams and wakes, screaming, and Abby is there, telling him it's okay, something inside him is wound so tightly that it snaps.

“It's not fucking okay," he snarls and pushes her off. This time she lets him, sitting back on her heels on the bed, her hair tousled and her eyes wide. The strap of her top has slipped from her shoulder down her arm and he stares at the bare patch of skin. She's switched the table lamp on and her freckles are smudges in the dim light, washed out.

“Okay," she says and then she flinches, a little grimace of nervousness as she pushes her hair out of her eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?" and her voice is as colourless as everything else in the room.

“Do I want to talk about it?" he mocks and her eyes narrow, the first sign of temper she's shown in days. But it doesn't take long for her expression to smooth out again, go back to that pale, faintly worried mask she wears day in and day out now. “What do you want to hear, Abby? Do you want to know what I dream about night after night? Being chased, being eaten?"

His voice rises with each word but her expression doesn't change. Instead she shifts position, now sitting with her legs crossed, settling in for the long haul.

He hates her a little for that.

“Okay," she says again and he's starting to hate that word, too. “Go on."

Her voice is too gentle and he looks away, down at his hands which are clean, not covered in blood and gore, not like he'd dreamed. In his dreams everything is crystal clear, vivid and real, more real than this. The sights, the sounds, the smells even, down to the way that steam rises from fresh, hot blood and the scent of it hits the back of his throat, metallic and awful.

“Something ate my heart," he whispers and his voice shakes.

“Something...?" She moves, leaning closer to him, and he has to fight the impulse not to move back and put some space between them. “Connor?"

He looks at her then, just looks at her and sees it dawning in her eyes.

“Me?"

It's a soft breath but it rips apart everything, all of the flimsy barricades he's put up. The laugh that comes out is ugly, hurtful. “Very Freudian, right?"

She flinches and now the shame hits but worse than that is the small, vicious part of him that likes hurting her, the little voice that says how do you like it?

He looks away. This is Abby, and he's never wanted to hurt her, except for those times when he did. But this is Abby, and she's always been stronger than him. She rallies while he's still reeling. Her eyes are shocked, wide with pain, pain he's inflicted, but:

“I thought this wasn't about me."

-o-

It goes on the list of things they don't talk about. Ever.

If he was stronger, he'd be less relieved.

-o-

“I spoke to Lester."

He waits for the punchline, watching as Abby indicates and waits for the traffic to let her through.

In the end, in the face of her silence, he says, “Oh?" She darts a quick look in his direction, like that's what she's been waiting for, just a simple acknowledgement, some interest maybe.

He thinks he's hiding how he feels until she looks back again, for longer this time.

“That was the deal," she says quietly, conversationally. “We check in every day so he knows we haven't been kidnapped by foreign superpowers."

It's the first he's heard of it and he wonders how she's been making the calls. Waiting until he's asleep? Until he's in the bathroom?

He shifts in his seat and she darts him another quick look, one that comes along with a nervous little twitch of a smile.

It doesn't reach her eyes. It never does these days.

He shifts again. “And?" he asks and it's as neutral as he can get. Maybe it's not neutral enough; she sends him another look but there's no smile this time.

“He wanted to know how you were doing."

He winds the window down an inch and the air that blows into the car is damp, smelling of diesel and autumn leaves.

“And?" he asks again.

She doesn't answer for a moment, concentrating on the road as an excuse to pause, to think. Or maybe she just is that conscientious a driver and he hasn't noticed until now.

“I told him we probably wouldn't be back for a while."

He shifts again, something burning in the back of his throat, behind his eyes.

“We?"

The look she gives him this time is opaque, unreadable. “That was the deal, Connor," she says gently. “Both of us go back or neither of us do."

He winds the window up again; the fumes from the road are choking him.

“Just the two of us left, right?" The sound of the road rolling under the wheels almost drowns him out but Abby hears him, maybe because she's started listening.

She hums a little in agreement, her eyes focused on the road ahead. “More like a package deal," she says.

His eyes burn but he doesn't cry, not this time.

-o-

( Prelude in C Minor - Part Two )

Netbook Question

2009-10-27T10:58:24Z

Nibble has an XP SSD version of the Acer, and I take it back, klo_the_hobbit, he is finding it very, very slow to do anything. It's not outside the 28 day return period so I'm going to have to go through the warranty process. But he's been having a play with Ubuntu and thinks he can deal with it (as all he really wants to do with it is go on the web when he's out and about, and we have other machines if he needs windows), but my question is, can I install Ubuntu onto an SSD card that plugs into the slot and have the option to boot from that? I don't want to write Windows over entirely and I'm not convinced that there's enough room on the SSD card internally for both. (I have a USB bootable stick but can't save changes to it, so if we updated anything or installed VLC etc, it won't save the changes, so I'd like it 'installed' somewhere and a permanent SSD expansion in one of the external slots might be the best option if we can do it.)

Time for bed, said Zebedee!

2009-10-15T22:50:51Z

But before I do, a few things for the sharing thereof.

First of all, for curia_regis:

Have a ninja ::g::

Secondly, oh Glee! You just get better and better and last night's ep, especially the end? Heart strings were tugged. And possibly snapped. I think it was the way the whole Glee club was looking at Quinn, during the last song. Not condemning, but supportive and warm and close to tears themselves. They've come so far and Rachel is right - in the end, the Glee Club may be all that Quinn has and in the end, it's the Glee Club she'll be able to count on.

Finally, shetiger posted a meme that I think should be shared. So, in her words:

One little compliment can make you feel amazing. So give me a compliment, anything in the entire world, even that my shoelaces are pretty. Put this in your journal. And once you get some comments, put that entry in a memory or tag and when you are feeling down, just go to that entry and this will remind how great you are.

Comment here and I'll give you a compliment! I'll screen comments, so you don't have to feel awkward about asking in front of other people. (Probably won't screen my replies unless you ask me to, though.)

However, I am off to bed now, so I won't be around until after work tomorrow. I will be checking my e-mail, though, so that will give me plenty of time to get my lyrical on. ::g:: So don't think that if I don't reply immediately that it means I don't love you, because I do ♥

Ok, that wasn't finally. What was the final thing? Oh, yes. This year we've passed the 100 sign up point for sga_santa, which is kind of a milestone ::g:: Just wanted to share :)

OMG!

2009-10-11T15:03:36Z

Steam Punk Wedding Cakes

Delicious in all senses of the word :)

I do not have an asgard in a Santa hat...

2009-09-29T21:40:57Z

but the 2009 sga_santa is open for business anyway.

From andrewleepotts

2009-09-29T11:19:23Z

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/29/primeval-itv1-watch-deal-recommissioned

OMG! OMG! OMG! Let it be true! And let it be the current cast!

Recipe: Potato Salad

2009-09-20T19:21:30Z

People keep asking me to post this and I, flake that I am with the attention span and recall abilities of your average goldfish, keep forgetting (as an aside, my neon tetras, which are wee and adorable, apparently have connected the time of day that I feed them and me walking up to the tank with the appearance of food. Consequently, they rise to the surface in anticipation, followed by my penguin tetras, which suggests that they, at least, have a greater mental capacity than I do most days).

So here it is. This is potato salad, a la terimaru, who taught me how to make her version of Tennessee/German potato salad on one of my trips over there. In return, I think I made mushroom pate ::g::

Apologies to terimaru if I've forgotten anything she taught me, but this is the way I make it at least.

Ingredients

1 kg of Potatoes
3 hard boiled eggs
Half a bunch of spring onions (3 or 4 reasonably sized ones)
Half a small jar of pickled gherkins (or cucumbers for the non-Brits)
A couple of tablespoons of mayonnaise
A couple of teaspoons of mustard

This what I call a 'rough and ready' recipe, in that it's not important to keep to those quantities or those ingredients, which is why I'm not too concerned if I've adapted Teri's recipe over the years ::g:: If you don't like gherkins, leave them out, although you might lose the crispy biteness of them. If you like strong onions, use regular or even red onions, shredded, in place of the spring ones. Add as much or as little mayonnaise as you like - I add enough so that they're not dry. Mustard gives it a bite, so I'd suggest leaving it in, and I probably put closer to a tablespoon in than a couple of teaspoons, but whatever floats your boat ::g:: Basic instructions, which I'm sure you don't need:

1. Wash the potatoes and, leaving them in their skins, cut them into large chunks. I tend to use salad potatoes, which are small anyway, and cut them in half if they're a couple of inches long, leaving the little ones whole. That way the skin is less likely to come off than if you use large ones and chop.

2. Boil for 15-20 minutes until they're cooked but still firm, then put to one side to cool from hot to warm.

3. Boil the eggs for as long.

4. Roughly chop the onions and gherkins into half an inch or so pieces and put in a bowl. If you're using red onions etc, I'd suggest chopping more finely as it tends to have more of a kick. If you're lazy (like me) you can even buy prechopped gherkins.

5. When the eggs have boiled, peel them out of their shell and then roughly chop them up or use an egg slice and add to the bowl.

6. Add the mayonnaise and mustard, and mix.

7. Add the potatoes and mix more, with a wooden spoon and fairly gently so you don't end up with mashed potato salad ::g::

8. Leave to cool and serve.

I tend to mix it all up when the potatoes and eggs are still a little warm, because it makes everything just sort of soak up the flavours, but whatever is good for you.

There. Recipe posted after more than a year of subtle prodding. ::g::

Fic: Several Miles from the Sun: Book 2 - Part 2 (Primeval, Abby/Connor, 15)

2009-09-13T20:59:51Z

Title: Several Miles from the Sun: Book 2
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: 15
Spoilers: This is an AU from 2.04, so spoilers up until the end of that episode
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~41,000 words in total. This part around 3,400.
Status: WIP
Author's Notes: Book One was originally written for temaris. Many thanks to her and to aithine for the whip cracking and beta services. Yeah, it's been a while.

The title - and quotes - are from 'The Sun' by Maroon 5.

Summary: Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Chapter Listing and Links

~*~

Day 7

Nick was on his fourth cup of coffee by the time that the ARC's lights switched over from their night-time settings to the brighter lights of day. They were too bright for Nick and he blinked a little as they flickered on over his head, wiping his hand tiredly over his face before taking another gulp from the cup he held. His watch might insist that day had dawned but his body clock was still mired in the depths of night and he was getting too old to pull all-nighters.

The coffee had gone cold but he swallowed it anyway. It didn't help much. Nothing helped much at the moment but that didn't mean he wasn't going to make the effort. But as soon as the bitter taste hit his tongue he knew this was one effort that was going to be wasted, and he finally pushed himself away from his desk to go in search of a fresher cup, one that tasted less like burnt acorns.

It took him a few moments to get going, and not all of that was due to the early hour. Too little activity and too much stress. Or he really was getting too bloody old for this gig. But at least there wasn't anyone around to see him staggering out of his door, willing his legs to loosen up. The lights may have switched over but it was still early and the ARC was quiet, almost eerily empty. The night staff were packing up, ready to go home, and the day staff had not yet started to trickle in.

He was safe for an hour or so at least, by his reckoning, at least until he realised that it wasn't just the lights in the main body of the ARC that were on. In spite of the early hour, Lester was already in his office when Nick strolled back towards his sanctuary, fresh cup of coffee clutched to his chest like it was the most precious thing in the world.

Damn it. Nick ducked his head, trying not to catch the man's attention, hoping that whatever paperwork had dragged Lester in at this hour would keep him engrossed until Nick was safely past the window. Didn't the man ever sleep? Nick was really starting to believe not, given that Lester was here even more often than Nick and that was saying something. Maybe Connor was on the ball with his blood-sucking vampire comparisons, the ones Nick had always pretended not to find funny, not wanting to do anything that encouraged Connor to ramble on more than he already did.

But when Connor got back, he'd have to share that observation with him, let Connor know that he got it now. Connor would get a kick out of it.

He made it to the far side of the glass window separating Lester's office from the rest of the hurly burly of the ARC without Lester seeming to notice, much to his relief. He'd had to deal with Jenny all night, meaning that in spite of the hour he'd had his fill of bureaucracy already today and didn't feel like a repetition. Jenny had been in far from fine fettle; it had been cold, dark and wet at the coast, something that Jenny had commented on at length and high volume. He could sympathise to some extent; after freezing their balls off nothing had come through the anomaly, which was a let down after the heavy-handed way they had gone in, complete with extensive backup at a no doubt exorbitant cost. He half expected Lester to be commenting on that today, a rant probably just as long and at just as high a volume as Jenny's night-time sharing of her feelings for all that it had been Lester's decision in the first place. Didn't want to lose any more of his scientific team, he suspected, and there was resentment in the thought.

He could have used the distraction of something dangerous coming through last night, or this morning. Something with teeth and claws to take the edge off this mingled feeling of impatience and helplessness. He suspected that they all could, but he wasn't paid enough - or stupid enough - to deal with Lester before breakfast. There was only so much sarcasm a man could take on an empty stomach, especially when old, cold coffee wasn't the only bitter thing he'd had to swallow recently.

He continued to skirt his way along the top platform that wound its way around the interior of the ARC, sipping absently at his cup of coffee as he watched the day staff finally file in one by one. He wasn't the only one greeting the day with caffeine. Stephen was down there, too, leaning against the wall, his own cup clutched negligently in his hand. There was something about his pose - deceptively relaxed - that had Nick tensing, looking around for whatever Stephen's sharp eyes had caught. Stephen, it seemed, was watching Leek as the man walked through the door, already fussing with a big sheaf of paperwork.

Nick's spider senses started tingling - another thought, another phrase he must have picked up from Connor via osmosis in the time he'd spent with his ex-student - and he began to head down the ramp towards the floor. He was too late; even as his foot stepped off the ramp and came to rest on the cold, concrete floor, Stephen pushed himself away from the wall and headed towards Leek, angling his path so that he intercepted him before Leek could reach the safety of his office.

Nick quickened his steps, eyeing the both of them. Stephen's body language stayed tense but that alone wasn't cause for alarm; they were both tense. In fact, the entire ARC seemed tense these days. It wasn't until Connor and Abby were both gone that Nick realised just how much of the ARC's space they took up and how much of a hole they left behind. No. What concerned Nick was the heated look on Stephen's face now; Stephen, who was normally so cool, calm and collected, who seemed to let most things flow off his back. Leek must have really pissed him off and this Nick had to see.

He might even have to break it up if the finger Stephen suddenly planted in the middle of Leek's chest was any indication.

Leek took a couple of steps back, Stephen following him, head bent low, close to Leek's face, speaking quietly but with an intensity that set all of Nick's alarm bells ringing. Not spider senses, not any more. These were full on blaring sirens.

"Stephen -"

Stephen didn't even turn his head, gave no sign that he was even aware that Nick was there, at least not outwardly, but Nick had known him too long to be fooled. He moved fractionally closer, waiting to see what Stephen would do, and even though this intensity on Stephen's part, this underlying simmering anger, wasn't familiar, the act of moving closer, waiting for Stephen's cue, was.

It hurt, just another reminder of how everything had changed.

"Leek," Stephen said eventually, never taking his eyes off the subject of conversation, "has apparently informed Captain Harrison that the ARC budget isn't infinite." His voice was even, almost calm, but he stayed far too close to Leek for Nick's comfort, even if his finger was no longer poking into Leek's chest.

Leek made a slightly disgruntled sound, his fingers smoothing along the line of his tie, straightening it again. He didn't seem at all perturbed by Stephen's outburst, his face also smoothing out into that slightly smug, condescending look that always made Nick want to plant his fist in it, to rearrange his features in the same way that Stephen had ruffled his clothes.

It took a second for Nick to place the name with a face and then he got it. Ryan's replacement - or maybe not. Maybe Harrison had always been here, in this version of the world, and it was Ryan who had been out of time. He'd never know which now that Ryan was dead.

Ryan had never even made it to this version of the world.

"I'm sorry," he said. "What's Harrison got to do with anything?"

It was Leek, not Stephen, who answered him.

"Well," Leek began, his tone as oily as always, "we are a publicly funded project, after all. We have a responsibility to the taxpayer to spend their tax monies wisely."

Stephen's breath hitched next to him but he barely twitched when Nick placed one hand on his arm, ready to stop him from landing a blow if needed. Nick was too bloody tired to work out what the hell Leek meant, and this whole situation was just draining him further.

"Okay, why don't we all pretend for a minute that I have no bloody idea what you're talking about and start from there?"

Stephen's bicep was like steel under his fingers and Leek smirked, eyes darting between them like the little weasel he was. He opened his mouth, probably to say something as smarmy as his expression, but this time Stephen beat him to it.

"Lester has decided to veto some of the equipment we need."

"I'd hardly say 'need'," Leek interrupted, moving to flick some invisible fluff off his sleeve, now that his tie was straightened to his apparent satisfaction.

Nick - tired of all of his posturing - wasn't in the mood to beat around the bush.

"Lester's already approved it."

"Within reason, I think you'll find." Leek's fingers smoothed down his tie again, probably to stop the little bastard from making air quotes. He looked the sort. "And I'm afraid that some of the equipment requisitioned doesn't really fit into the 'reasonableness' zone."

This time he did make air quotes, and Stephen's arm twitched. Nick tightened his grip instinctively, at least as much to prevent him taking a swing at Leek as to prevent Stephen.

"What equipment?" He didn't think that Stephen would requisition anything that wasn't required - the man was too used to the even tighter purse strings of academia. Harrison was an unknown quantity, at least to Nick, but he doubted the captain would exactly be asking for go-go dancers.

After a long pause, one in which Leek's smirking look at Stephen made Nick's fingers itch, Stephen answered, his voice toneless.

"RIBs," he said and then, at Nick's look, clarified, "rigid inflatable boats. Scuba gear. Marine survival equipment, spear guns, that type of thing. The stuff we'll need in an aquatic environment."

"The expensive stuff you say you need for an aquatic environment," Leek interjected, then added, "Assuming, of course, that you'll ever encounter another aquatic environment. And even if you do..." He spread his hands helplessly, "we already have boats."

"As I've already told you," Stephen spat out, his body language moving towards more openly aggressive as he shook off Nick's hand, "the boats we used at the reservoir aren't suited for oceanic use. They're too small - any wave size and we'd be swamped. We need something bigger but still portable."

Leek continued to smirk. "Something more expensive and as I've already told you, we simply don't have the budget for frivolities."

"It's not frivolities when you're talking about lives." Stephen's voice was rising and the morning shift, now trickling in, were turning to look at them as they passed.

Nick bit back on his instinctive agreement and rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the stubble catch at his fingers. "What if we just escalated this straight to Lester? Ask him whether he thinks a few pennies saved are worth losing more people..."

Leek bristled like a bantam, his eyes narrowing slightly as he rocked forward onto the balls of his feet. It would have been funny if anything about this whole fucked up situation could be.

"Sir James," he huffed, "is far too busy to be bothered with minor details."

This time it was Stephen who held Nick back, his fingers tightening on Nick's arm to the point of pain and bringing Nick back to his senses. "Abby and Connor," he growled, shaking Stephen's hand off much as Stephen had shook his off earlier, "are not 'minor details'. Nor are the lives of anyone going after them."

Perhaps it was something in the way that Leek's face cleared of irritation, the lines smoothing out into that insincere mask he wore day in and day out, but he knew Leek's response a beat before the man delivered it, his voice full of mock sympathy. "That's assuming, of course, that there's any chance of anyone going after them." Nick at least had the gratification of watching Leek take a step back, his hands spreading helplessly with a false look of piety on his face. "I'm sure that we're all hoping otherwise, but it does pay to be pragmatic in these cases."

"You little..."

He grabbed at Stephen as Stephen lunged past him, a look of fury on his face. God only knew why - maybe because he wanted to land his own punch - but it slowed Stephen down just long enough to stop him from doing anything irreversibly stupid.

"What on earth is going on here?"

Lester's dulcet tones cut across the tension and Stephen rocked back on his heels, turning away from Leek to face Lester instead, his face like stone and his eyes narrowed. After a second of watching Stephen warily, his hand still half raised, just in case Stephen made a lunge for him as well, Nick turned as well, dismissing Leek from his line of sight if not entirely from his thoughts.

He opened his mouth but once again Stephen beat him to it.

"We need the equipment you're refusing to requisition."

The words were hard and flat, and Nick recognised the tone - Stephen at his worst, brooking no argument and refusing to back down. Lester, however, didn't seem at all fazed by it. He simply raised one eyebrow, a little superciliously.

"I wasn't aware I'd refused to requisition anything," he said urbanely. "I'm assuming, of course, that everything you're trying to requisition is legal? And that there are no items that might result in me answering awkward questions posed by any House Select Committee?"

"Yes." Still flat and hard, and Stephen's eyes didn't waver from Lester's face, challenging in spite of Stephen's expressionless face.

Now a small frown appeared between Lester's eyes, and his gaze darted from Stephen's face to Nick's and only then to Leek's.

"Oliver?" he asked mildly, and maybe it was only Nick who caught the irritation underneath because Leek preened slightly, casting a look towards Stephen that was already edging into the triumphant.

"I was explaining the budget situation, James," he explained, puffing his chest out again. "While obviously I have every sympathy, at the moment there is simply not a strong enough argument to lay out that amount of expenditure."

Lester huffed, the irritation coming clearly to the surface now. "Would anyone care to elaborate on what exactly the expenditure in question relates to? Or am I simply supposed to guess?"

"Boats," said Nick simply. "Other stuff as well, but I suspect the boats are the sticking point because they'll be the biggest expense."

"And you already have boats," Leek interjected, throwing a simpering look in Lester's direction when the eyebrow rose again. "I don't see why - "

"And you think differently, do you, Hart?" Lester cut across him, ignoring the sudden look of frustration on Leek's face, which vanished almost as soon as it had arrived. Perhaps he hadn't seen it, as oblivious to it as Leek had seemed to be to his irritation.

"Yes." Still flat, still giving no ground.

When Stephen didn't elaborate, not even when confronted by Lester's politely astonished look, sarcastic in a way that only Lester could manage, Nick leapt into the fray, trying to sound like he knew what the hell he was talking about and trying not to resent Stephen's silence.

"These are ocean going, better suited for what we might find than the ones we've already got."

"I see." Lester rocked back on his heels, never taking his eyes off Stephen. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Professor, but the Earth is about two thirds covered in water?"

"That's right."

"And that's been fairly consistent? And likely to be in the future?"

"Well..." He glanced at Stephen, but his lab tech was no help. His gaze didn't move from Lester's face, although there was a slight frown between Stephen's eyes now, his lips pinched the way they always got when there was a conundrum he couldn't quite work out, one that was unsettling him. "It varies, but it's fair to say that there have been large bodies of water present since life originated. No water, no life. Even when sea levels have been at their lowest, there's still been water - just locked up as ice."

"Yes, yes, thank you. I get the point. Lots of water. And we've already had at least two incursions that have been water based, right, Leek?"

Leek was caught off guard at the question, his gaze having been flickering backwards and forwards between Stephen and Lester as though at a tennis match, even though Stephen's volleys were few and far between.

"I... I believe so, James, yes."

"So even if we haven't had one yet that involves the ocean - and frankly, I don't even want to consider the implications of something that pops up where it shouldn't in international waters - it's only a matter of time. And even if we're lucky enough not to have plesiosaurs trying to eat trawlers in the North Sea, that doesn't mean they aren't going to show up in something larger than a reservoir. Of course, this means that no one is to mention Loch Ness in Mr Temple's hearing when he gets back, is that clear?"

Nick's mouth curled up in a brief, involuntary smile. "I suspect Connor's already thought of that one all on his own."

"Undoubtedly. But that doesn't mean we have to encourage the boy." Lester finally tore his gaze from Stephen's face, the matter apparently having been settled to his satisfaction. "Sign the requisitions, Leek," he said, already sounding bored with the discussion, "There's a good man." He turned on his heel and headed back to his office, throwing back over his shoulder, "We'd better make sure that we're properly equipped or I'll be having to explain that to the House Select Committee."

"Of course, James." The words were pleasant enough but the look Leek threw the pair of them before he headed back to his office was anything but.

Nick watched him go before turning back towards Stephen. "Well, that was..." He trailed off when it became obvious that Stephen wasn't listening. He was watching Lester make his way back to his office instead, his brow still furrowed and the look on his face forbidding.

"Lester came through," Nick reminded him, his voice sharp.

"Yes," said Stephen slowly, still watching Lester and Nick bit back his response to that. "Don't you think that's a bit... odd?"

"In what way?"

"Overruling his right hand man like that. For us."

"For Connor and Abby," Nick reminded him again. "And he has a point."

"No," Stephen corrected him, finally turning to look at him. "We had a point. And he agreed with it."

"Yes. And your point?"

Stephen shrugged, his gaze drifting back to the window of Lester's office and his brow still creased. "Just thought it was worth pointing out that it's not exactly like Lester to be that helpful. That's all." Then he turned his gaze back to Nick, but his face stayed thoughtful, still frowning. "I'm going to find Harrison. Make sure Leek signs those requisitions before either of them has a chance to wriggle out of it."

"Do you really think that's likely?"

"Don't you?"

He didn't answer and, after a moment, Stephen turned on his heel and stalked away, his hands buried deeply into his pockets like he didn't trust them loose. Nick could only stand there, staring at Stephen's retreating back until his assistant disappeared behind the corridor doors, the brief sense of victory fading in the face of Stephen's last riposte.

He really was too bloody tired for this.

Slight Technical Delay

2009-09-01T19:26:07Z

Unfortunately aithine has hit a slight delay in returning from holiday, meaning we can't officially close signups on the site until she's back tomorrow.

On the plus side, if you were dithering and thinking that you'd missed the deadline, this gives you a whole 24 hours to sign your life away! ::g:: More info on sign ups can be found here and sign ups are here

Primevalathon - Sign ups reminder

2009-08-27T10:21:53Z

Just a reminder that the sign ups for this round of the primevalathon fic exchange close at midnight on Monday 31 August (in theory ::g:: In practice, it's whenever we get up on Tuesday).

More information can be found here

Announcing the Autumn 2009 Primevalathon Ficathon

2009-08-12T22:09:37Z

Signups are now open for the next round. Signups will close on 31 August, with stories due on 31 October.

More information can be found here.

Hope to see you all there!

To spare you emo...

2009-08-01T10:44:55Z

I will instead post this:

The "You Should Write..." Meme!
my thread here

I am now officially on holiday, thank all that is holy, so I may actually have the time and/or energy to do something other than simply getting through the day.

Fic: Heart(h) (Primeval, Connor, G)

2009-07-21T20:12:57Z

Title: Heart(h)
Word Count: 100
Author: alyse
Rating: G
Fandom: Primeval
Challenge: Parents
Character: Connor

Connor doesn't really remember the father who left when he was five. He saw him afterwards, for a while, until 'that woman's' resentment meant that even Connor couldn't be bothered with the whole visitation thing. What he remembers is his mother and her thin-lipped expression when the rare maintenance cheques turned up, the ones she didn't cash.

She loves him, but... He remembers how hard she worked, how tired she was all the time, snapping at his daydreaming, his untidiness, with weariness in every word.

That's why Lester's flat, with its post-it notes and barely hidden exasperation, feels like home.

Yes, Virginia, there is no Wraithbait...

2009-06-03T17:47:52Z

It looks like there's an issue with the php files on the server (after some detective work by temaris and I). I've checked that I've paid ma bills! (::g::), that the files are still there (accessible via FTP), that we haven't lost the databases (my cpanel is still accessible) and various other things, but the eFiction sites aren't showing up. You just get a blank page.

This is affecting:

www.wraithbait.com
www.csi-forensics.com
www.cathandnick.com
www.jamspaddedcell.co.uk
www.unconsciousmind.co.uk (my site)

It is not affecting the html site I host for widget285 (www.widgeteria.co.uk) which is still accessible.

I've reported it and unfortunately there's nothing I can do to fix it at my end. So it's a question of wait for the webhost to deal with, I'm afraid.

Apologies for any inconvenience.

Chunky Monkey Cookies

2009-05-31T14:14:57Z

Nibble and I have been making these, and they are yummy even if they are also very sweet. So I figured I'd share the recipe, especially as this means I won't need to take my cookbooks to Cornwall in case it rains and we need to keep small people and Suzy occupied.

Chunky Monkey Cookies

7oz plain flour
1 teaspoon (tsp) of bicarbonite of soda
4oz caster sugar
4oz butter
1 egg
1 tablespoon (tbsp) milk
5 oz white chocolate
3oz glace cherries

1. Set oven to 180 C, 350 F, Gas Mark 4. Grease baking trays.

2. Mix flour, sugar and bicarb together.

3. Cut butter into small pieces and add to the flour etc, rubbing to produce fine breadcrumbs.

4. Beat the egg and milk together. Chop the white chocolate and cherries into small pieces. Add all to the flour mixture and mix.

5. Place dessert spoon sized drops on the baking tray, well spread apart (the cookies spread a lot).

6. Bake for 8 - 12 minutes until golden and remove. Allow to cool for at least 2 mins before taking off the baking tray.

You can mix and match, replacing white chocolate for dark if you prefer not quite as sweet, or using dried apricots instead of cherries. Or even use all fruit.

Abby/Connor wallpapers

2009-05-16T14:14:43Z

I made myself a very simple Abby and Connor wallpaper for my computer, but as the colours came out prettily I thought I'd share.

There are three different sizes, including widescreen because that's my monitor resolution :) But let me know if you like but need a different size, and I'll see what I can do. They're all hosted on LJ's scrapbook, but if you click on a pic, the link should take you to the full sized image.

	Abby and Connor wallpaper from 3x02, 800x600 (141kb)
	Abby and Connor wallpaper from 3x02, 1024x768 (228kb)
	Abby and Connor wallpaper from 3x02, 1366x768 (313kb)

Fic: How T. rex Got His Groove Back (Original)

2009-05-10T23:29:42Z

Title: How T. rex Got His Groove Back
Author: alyse
Fandom: Original fic
Pairing: Tyrannosaurus/Baryonyx.
Rating: Hard R
Word Count: ~1,300.
Status: Complete.
Warnings: I appear to have written dinosaur porn. Oh, the shame.
Author's Notes: Written for mmom. Unsurprisingly.

For davechicken and alinak, who pretty much dared me to, and for moonlettuce, who didn't stop me. And for aithine, who read it through for me and didn't have me committed on the spot.

I have taken several liberties with time periods, geographic locations and my sanity.

Summary: It started with Baryonyx, the bastard.

-o-

It started with Baryonyx, the bastard. It was bad enough that he was hunting on Tyrannosaurus's turf again, the boldfaced git. It wasn't for nothing, he thought, that he was known as rex of these here parts, and it was about time the bastard realised it. No. Baryonyx had to go one better and stand there, in Tyrannosaurus rex's forest, bold as brass, doing things that Tyrannosaurus probably wouldn't even dream of asking Mrs Tyrannosaurus to do for him.

Although, that might have had more to do with the chance of her eating his face if he dared even hint in that direction than anything else. There was also a reason why Tyrannosaurs were lone beasts - so Tyrannosaurus rex could be king of his own castle as it were, without the worry of his wife kicking his arse on a regular basis.

Mind, she wouldn't have stood for this either, if she was here and not off raising their spoilt little brat of a youngling, and Tyrannosaurus took a deep breath and let it all out in a bellow that made the trees shake.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Baryonyx, the bastard, didn't even miss a stroke.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he asked lazily, his claws continuing to gently stroke along his unsheathed reproductive organ. "Making good use of my grasping claws."

Tyrannosaurus took another deep breath, and roared. It was the kind of roar that sent herds of hadrosaurs running for the hills, and he was pleased to note that it at least put Baryonyx off his stroke. Temporarily.

"Dude. Chill."

"Chill?" Tyrannosaurus roared. "No, I will not fuckin' chill! Get a fuckin' room, you deadbeat scavenging layabout."

Baryonyx snorted, releasing his grasp on his reproductive organ. He didn't put it away, though, and it remained hanging there, swaying gently in the Cretaceous breeze. It was thick and red and Tyrannosaurus had to pull his gaze away, his eyes having fixed there in horrified fascination. "Yeah," Baryonyx growled back, lower in pitch than Tyrannosaurus's bellow, "Look who's talking. Like you've never done a little scavenging when things are tight." He snorted, those large, pale eyes looking Tyrannosaurus over contemptuously. "Are you sure you're not jealous that I can reach, when all you have is those itty, bitty arms?"

The bastard had gone too far this time, and T rex bared his teeth, growling low and fiercely in the back of his throat as he edged forwards, his head bobbing from side to side as he wondered just exactly where on Baryonyx's impudent form he was going to rip a new fucking arsehole.

That was one area where Baryonyx was outmatched, and the fucker knew it.

"Whatever," he said, his reproductive organ finally sliding back into its sheath as he backed down and backed away like always, the spineless little shit. And he had the gall to call himself an apex predator. "Seriously, dude. Get laid or something, will you?"

Tyrannosaurus glared after him, staring at his retreating back. As Baryonyx disappeared from view, heading back towards the river, the only snappy comeback that came to mind was a rather nonsensical, "Yeah? And don't come back, you fucking fish-eater!"

"He's right about one thing," came a low voice from the undergrowth, and Tyrannosaurus spun on his heels, turning his bulk as fast as his muscles could stand. There, lurking in the shadows of the towering trees, was Ankylosaurus, his head tilted as he stared after Baryonyx, just as Tyrannosaurus had been.

Tyrannosaurus bared his fangs with another growl. "You want some of this, too?"

Ankylosaurus snorted and swung his tail around, not moving from the spot as Tyrannosaurus stalked back and forth but making damned sure that Tyrannosaurus got a good look at what he was packing. "Only if you're feeling like having a limb broken today," he said dryly.

"Don't make me eat you," Tyrannosaurus threatened. Ankylosaurus merely snorted again, turning his head to stare back in the direction that Baryonyx had fled.

"I'm pretty sure it's not me angling for that," he said, his tone still as dry as old bones, the ones that had already had the marrow sucked out of them.

"What?"

Ankylosaurus shook his head mock sadly. "Haven't you figured out why he was doing it here?"

"I'm pretty sure he was just pissing in my pool."

"No. I'm fairly certain he was actually pissing in the pool three bends down the river," said Ankylosaurus. Trust that early Cretaceous throwback not to understand what the hell Tyrannosaurus was talking about. "That crack about your arms not reaching? I'm also fairly certain there was an offer in there, somewhere."

Tyrannosaurus might not have known anything about offers, but he sure as hell knew when he was being dissed. "You keep away from the fucking hands, you hear?"

He didn't think it was possible for something that heavily armoured to pull the kind of dismissive, sardonic face that Ankylosaurus pulled on hearing that, but apparently he'd been wrong. "I'm not touching your hands," Ankylosaurus said. "In any way, shape or form. But I'm certainly not insulting you because of it." He shrugged, the plates on his back rolling in a way that might have made a lesser dinosaur than Tyrannosaurus think twice about taking him to task. "I mean, I'm a fine one to talk. I don't even have graspable claws, and even if I did..." He arched his back, showing just how impossible it was for him to bend it. "I do have other physical obstacles that stand in the way of a little self-gratification. We can't all be Apatosaurus, after all."

"What?"

Ankylosaurus gave him a look that was half-amused and half-exasperated. "Did you never wonder what he puts that neck to use for?"

"Eating trees," replied Tyrannosaurus promptly, and Ankylosaurus snorted again.

"Trees aren't the only things he eats. Have you never wondered why he's so placid and good natured?"

"I figured that was down to the trees. You know those tree hugging, hippy types."

"Oh, he's all for the age of love. Self-love, in this case, obviously." Ankylosaurus rolled his neck, letting the sharp edges of his armoured plate ease whatever itch he needed to scratch. "And... well, let's put it this way. Everything is in proportion."

Tyrannosaurus digested this slowly, along with the small Iguanodon he'd had for lunch.

"He's..."

"Yes." Ankylosaurus settled back on his haunches, staring almost dreamily at the river, where it sparkled through the trees.

"I don't suppose he'd..."

"No." Ankylosaurus snorted again. "And don't even think about asking me to roll over and give it a go. I'm not going to let you eat me. Especially not when there's a good chance you'd actually eat me."

"Dude. That's just..."

When words failed him, leaving his jaw snapping pointlessly, Ankylosaurus snorted again and turned his bulk around, trundling off back through the trees. "Your best bet," he threw over his shoulder as he went, "is to follow Baryonyx. At least he can reach. Plus, he has that long neck, too."

That was a completely gross image, especially when accompanied by Ankylosaurus attempting to wiggle his brows in a suggestive manner before he finally turned back and looked where he was going. Which was an improvement, because the last time he'd walked into something, he'd left scars on several trees and they still hadn't recovered yet.

"I'm totally not going to do that," Tyrannosaurus yelled after the ancient Saurian, but Ankylosaurus just flicked the club on the end of his tail dismissively and blundered off into the undergrowth.

Tyrannosaurus was left in the clearing on his own, staring down towards the river, to where Baryonyx had retreated. Ankylosaurus had to be wrong, of course, completely misinterpreting what he'd seen, the old fool, but on the other hand...

There was no reason for him not to follow Baryonyx and show him, once and for all, who was boss. And if he couldn't do that, well, his name wasn't Tyrannosaurus rex.

The End

Fic: Living Dangerously (Primeval, Abby/Connor, NC-17)

2009-05-10T11:17:20Z

Title: Living Dangerously
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Series 3 to date
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~2,000.
Status: Complete.
Warnings: None
Author's Notes: Written for mmom.

Summary: Abby's got used to living dangerously.

-o-

It took almost three years from first finding the anomalies to Connor figuring out how to lock them down, shrinking them into a hard shell so that nothing could come through. It took another eighteen months after that before he and Sarah finally perfected what Cutter was working on when he died - a way to predict the anomalies before they opened. Once they manage that, the team moves from reactive to proactive, hunting anomalies down before they even have a chance to bloom and then, when they've found them, they just wait around for them to open so that they can shut them down again with a flick of a switch.

Connor and Sarah's modelling isn't foolproof - it's based on historical records, and Sarah's the first to admit that they're not perfect - so there's still that element of danger, the occasional anomaly that they can't predict, the creature they hadn't counted on. Then it's back to what they used to do, running around like blue-arsed flies, trying to save the world. But most of the time, everything is under control. It feels like they might finally win: that people will stop dying, that the world will stop ending.

Abby should be relieved, and she is, especially after the losses that their team has suffered. It's just that...

Abby's got used to living dangerously and now that her life has become humdrum, she misses the hell out of it. That's probably she's on her knees behind the SUV at the latest potential anomaly site, sucking Connor off.

Becker and the two men he brought with them are off exploring the terrain, getting a feel for it, just in case. She and Connor - even these days - have strict instructions to 'stay with the car' and 'don't do anything stupid'. That little speech has become rote for Becker, as routine as all of their days are. It's something said without thought because Becker doesn't think anything's going to happen.

Abby's tired of waiting for things to happen and she's tired of not being stupid. Besides, Becker said 'stay with the car' not 'stay in the car', not that it would matter one way or the other. He knows them too well. That's why he hasn't ventured far.

She can hear him even now. He's maybe fifty feet away, his boots crunching on the gravel as he paces. He's looking at the building, she thinks, the one that's half warehouse/half factory and all empty, and she leans in, sucks down on Connor's cock until she thinks she'll choke.

Connor makes a sound, soft and muffled, and when she looks up at him, frowning, he has his fist up to his mouth. She can't tell if he's biting it or whether it's just to muffle the noises he's making, but she slides her mouth off his dick anyway and it falls from her lips with a soft, wet 'pop'.

It's wet to the touch, slick with her spit and his pre-come, and she strokes it, up and down, while she tilts her head, straining for any sounds coming from Becker's direction, anything that might tell her that he was about to walk around the bonnet of the car and see them there. But there's nothing to be heard but a buzzing in her ears, whether that comes from wildlife around them or the adrenaline coursing through her veins. The sun is beating down on her head, sweat running from her brow into her eyes, stinging. She leans in again, closes her eyes and wraps her lips around Connor's cock, tasting salt there, too.

He makes another stifled sound and his hand slaps against the side of the truck. She blinks her eyes open and watches his fingers curl against the paint, scrabbling for a grip as she swallows, swirling her tongue around the end of his knob and teasing at his foreskin.

There's gravel under her knees, digging in each time she shifts position, first nosing at Connor's groin, then pulling back far enough to wrap her fingers around his shaft and pump it slowly while she flicks her tongue over the head.

Becker's footsteps come closer then pause, but she doesn't think he's seen them yet. She lets her hand slide down Connor's length, cupping his balls as she takes him in deeper. He's close, she can feel it, his balls shrinking, tightening in her fingers as his whole body tenses. When she glances up this time, Connor's head is half turned away from her - listening for Becker, too - but his fingers are still curled against the car's side and his teeth are buried in his lip.

She pulls back again, opening her mouth and resting the tip of his dick on her bottom lip, tasting it on her tongue. Her fingers fly along his shaft, no finesse at all in her movements as she drives him towards coming, and she stares up at him, willing him to look at her, fierce and needy. When he finally turns his head back and looks down at her, it's as though he's heard everything she didn't say.

His eyes are blown, black on dark brown, and his lips are parted now, the imprint of his teeth red marks on his skin and his breath whistling through them. She can hear it, even over the pounding of her heart in her ears, but she has no idea if Becker can. She doesn't care much; her hand moves faster, more firmly, and Connor's whole body shudders, his fingers still scrabbling for a hold and his eyes wide and shocked. He's trying to stay still, oh so very still, but he loses it enough to thrust into her mouth, small, rough jerks of his hips that make her gag as her fingers continue to play with him.

She places her free hand on his belly, holding him still as she keeps on jerking him off. It leaves her off-balance and she has to shift her knees apart, her shoes scraping on the gravel. There are small starbursts of pain where the small stones cut and graze her skin, and she's finding it difficult to catch her breath, caught up in the feel of Connor in her mouth and under her fingertips. But when he comes, she's ready for him, pulling back far enough so that he spills onto her open mouth, on her tongue, as good at this as any porn star he's ever watched and pretended he didn't.

He watches her, too, and can't pretend he's not, his fist in his mouth and his eyes lost but never moving from her face.

She doesn't swallow, not at first, even though Connor's come is slightly bitter in her mouth and droplets are escaping over her lips. Becker's footsteps are coming closer still, or maybe that's just the sounds of the world around them ringing in her ears as everything comes back to her. She pushes herself up, staggering a little as the blood starts to circulate in her legs again, and stumbles against Connor, who catches hold of her, pulling her closer. His body is warm, damp where he's been sweating, and she presses her mouth against his, her fingers buried in his hair as she holds him steady; she might be willing to swallow, but she's not doing it alone. She slides her tongue into his mouth, swallows down his moan as he tastes himself. He's still half-hard, his cock not softening yet, and she can feel the tip of it against her stomach, wet against her skin where her t-shirt has ridden up.

She presses closer, aching for him.

Becker clears his throat behind her. Abby doesn't jump, but Connor does; she can feel him start under her hands and he pulls his mouth away, looking guiltily over her shoulder. She doesn't look up either; she turns her face into Connor's neck, breathing against his skin and wondering what Becker's reaction would be if she stepped back, let him see what her body is carefully shielding from view - Connor's open trousers, his cock still hanging out in the breeze. She would never do that to Connor, expose him like that, but on the other hand, the idea of doing it, of having Becker know for sure what they were up to, is a hell of a turn on.

"When you two lovebirds have quite finished," Becker says dryly, and Connor twitches, still guilty. "There's no sign of the anomaly," Becker continues, seeming oblivious to the fact that neither of them has moved. "So you know the drill..."

"We camp and we wait," Abby replies, finally turning her head to look at Becker, her body still pressed tightly against Connor's. He's moved to the side of them, the gravel crunching underneath his feet, and he's not looking at them now - he's watching the empty building, or maybe looking for his men. He snorts, shifting position and looking back at her. She can't help but smirk at him. "If there is an anomaly, anything that came through is going to hear you coming."

He smirks back at her, quirking an eyebrow for good measure. "You didn't," he says before turning away again and starting back down the small embankment from the car park towards the building. She takes the opportunity to pull back fractionally from Connor, sliding her hand between their bellies to stroke her fingertip over the sensitive end of his cock. He twitches again, casting another guilty look in Becker's direction but Becker isn't interested in them anymore, and Connor risks pulling far enough away from her to tuck his cock back out of sight and fumble with the fastenings of his jeans.

Becker's voice drifts back to them, edged with impatience or something, at least, that quickens his words and leaves them with a hint of sharpness around the edges. "Feel free to come and join us anytime."

Does he know? Had he seen?

It's difficult to tell what Becker's thinking at the best of times; after a moment, she gives a little inner mental shrug and looks back at Connor. He's staring after Becker with a small frown between his eyes, but she doesn't think he read anything into what Becker said.

"So..." His voice is a little hoarse, and he glances at her before looking back at Becker again. No, not Becker, because Becker's moved to the left but Connor's still looking in the same direction. She leans in closer, moving until her hair brushes his cheek, and realises that he's staring at the building. "I guess we're camping in there, then?"

"I'd guess so."

The look he gives her now is carefully nonchalant. "Think we should go and check it out?"

He doesn't wait for her to answer, but grabs her hand impatiently, pulling her down across the car park and yelling after Becker, "Hey, Becker? Me and Abby are going to check out where we're camping, yeah?"

She thinks Becker rolls his eyes, but Connor is still tugging at her and her legs haven't quite recovered. She has to concentrate on keeping her balance.

It's much darker inside the building than out, and for a second she's blind, sunspots dancing in her vision. There is light - it streams through the large, dirty windows that cover one wall, grimy enough to leave it dim but not so dark you couldn't see through them if you wanted to.

Becker and his men are still outside, exploring. They could be closer than either Abby or Connor think.

Connor pushes her up against a bench and he kisses her hungrily, his fingers already sliding into her knickers, stroking against her wet folds. As he tugs at her knickers and falls down to his knees in front of her, it occurs to her that maybe Connor's missed living dangerously, too.

The End