Fic: Whiteout (pt 2)
Title: Whiteout
Author: casy_dee
Rating: T (for now)
Characters/Pairing: Connor/Abby
Spoiler: minor s4
Warning: violence/mention of abuse
Genre: action/adventure/romance
Chapter: 2/3
Summary: Happy birthday tay_21! I won't tell you her prompts until the end, because I don't want to spoil it. This is set sometime after S4 I imagine. Connor is taking Abby home to meet his mum, but a blizzard, an unexpected stop and unforeseen danger await them instead. Can Connor and Abby survive it?
Chapter 1 is Here
A/N: Whew! This one has really gotten out of control! Also, wanted to thank evenstar_estel for letting me bounce ideas off her for this fic… she’s a wonderfully talented author!
I really hope you like this!
Chapter 2
“What the hell is that?” George asked as the flickering coalesced into a shimmering ball of light behind them.
The gun flew out of the German’s slack grip, sucked into the newly formed anomaly. Del wisely holstered his. The three men momentarily ignored their quarry in favor of staring into the anomaly. Seeing as he was the quarry, Connor was relieved. He understood the awe that an anomaly caused when someone saw one for the first time; he hoped he could use it against them. Connor scooted towards Abby; she hadn‘t even moved.
“Abby! Get up,” he said urgently, his voice hushed to avoid drawing their captor‘s attention.
She was still lying motionless, and the complete lack of expression on her face made his blood run cold. He didn’t know what to do, but he knew whatever it was, he’d need to do it quickly. Either their captors would get bored of the anomaly and turn back to torturing them, or something could come through. Connor tried to think positive… perhaps they would go through and it would close behind them? No. He never had that sort of luck.
He bent over her, getting as close as he could, wincing as his body protested. For all they had said they wanted him intact, he certainly didn’t feel very intact. He kissed her cheek, though his lips felt swollen, “Abby, please. Look at me. We need to get out of here.”
She shivered violently and opened her eyes, and then turned her head to look at him. Relief flooded through him as he read recognition behind her eyes. She was with him. Good. She sat up slowly, keeping her eyes on the men still staring fascinated at the anomaly. They’d begun to argue. Perfect. That meant they were distracted. It seemed the German wanted to go in after his gun. That would certainly help to even the odds a little bit for he and Abby.
Connor whispered, “We’re going to make a run for it. No matter what, you keep going. Promise me.”
“You are coming too,” Abby argued without turning to look at him.
“Yep. Yeah, ‘course. But if somethin’ happens… you keep going. Ready?”
She nodded as they got their feet under them, “You do the same, hear?”
His dark eyes met hers for a moment. He gave a quick nod. There was no way in hell he’d leave her, but he’d not tell her that for expediency‘s sake. They hadn’t got the time for it.
The German stuck his head through the anomaly. This was likely their best opportunity. Connor was wobbly, but he’d run, damn it. He’d manage it somehow. Abby and Connor both flinched as the German was yanked through, a strangled scream echoing through the service station. A heartbeat later, a creature came through, encouraged by finding a source of easy prey. Del drew his gun and fired at the large dinosaur. Unfazed, the creature attacked, tearing his neck nearly half off of his body with one bite. The dinosaur was about the size of a grizzly bear, and much like a grizzly bear, humans were no match for its power and speed.
“Utahraptor,” Connor breathed, “Go… Go!”
They took off running awkwardly as another Utahraptor came through behind the first. Connor urged Abby along frantically as his mind categorized and classified the creature; Utahraptors were large, very fast Theropods from the late Cretaceous. Many paleontologists had theorized that they were among the smartest of the dinosaurs, but the things didn’t need to be smart to eat them. Connor pushed the dinosaur trivia out of his mind impatiently, it wasn‘t useful or helpful at this time… just distracting. They hurried, Connor at more of a staggering lope than a run, but with their hands bound behind them, he wasn’t sure if it would be fast enough. They made it almost out of the restaurant area before the Utahraptors stopped feeding on their captors and noticed them.
Connor and Abby headed down the center hallway and for the back of the petrol counter, diving behind it and crouching low whilst they searched for a back exit. The service area was put together like a maze, and what had been irritating to them when they’d first arrived was now the very thing that could give them the precious moments they needed to escape. Panting hard, hurting and terrified, Connor was watching for Utahraptors instead of his feet. He tripped and went sprawling, landing face-first on the hard linoleum floor. He gave a short scream as he realized exactly what he’d tripped over. The petrol attendant… dead. By the vibrant ligature marks on his neck, it was obvious how he’d gone. Connor wondered about the fate of the others.
“Connor, get up. They’ll be coming!” Abby hissed. The man was dead, and they would be too if they didn’t find somewhere to hide.
Connor forced himself to his feet and peered over the counter. He heard the Utahraptors moving in the hall. It was only a matter of time before they found them. He studied the room frantically, looking for some form of shelter. Abby tilted her head towards the exit sign. Connor nodded in return. They ran for the exit, mingled relief and fear speeding their way. Abby reached the door first and slammed against the bar to open it. It didn’t open. She gave a strangled cry of frustration, “Won’t open!”
Connor tried it, but it wouldn’t yield to him either. He searched for an alternative; his eyes lit on the large walk-in freezer where one of their captors had said he’d stashed the others. Large, metal, fairly scent-proof and with a securely latching door, it would be the perfect place to escape the dinosaurs.
“The freezer, Abby. Go!”
She went, fast as she was able. Connor turned his back to the freezer door and fumbled with the handle, but his hands were numbed by loss of circulation, and blood had tricked down his wrists to coat his hands, further preventing him from getting a good enough grip on the handle to turn it. They were running out of time. He focused on his surroundings, forcing himself to think. “Can’t get it… somewhere else.”
Abby spotted the open door of what had probably been the manager’s office. Upon initial inspection when they‘d first entered the room, they’d discounted it as a potential hiding place. It was tiny, and the wooden door looked as if it might fall off the hinges at any moment, but it might be enough of a deterrent to get the Utahraptors off their back for long enough for the team from the ARC to arrive. Aside from ducking behind the counter with the dead guy, who would likely serve as a tasty snack, they were out of other options.
The ARC would have detected the reoccurrence of the anomaly, and when both Connor and Abby failed to respond to their calls, they’d know something was amiss. Jess was sharp, and they’d have to hope she put two and two together and conveyed the fact that they might be in trouble to the responding team. Abby crouched low and went for the little office; Connor followed and managed to kick the door shut behind him just as a Utahraptor entered the room and began steadily picking its way down the isle.
“Don’t think it spotted us,“ Connor whispered.
Abby shushed him, listening for the creature. It rooted around in the shop area, knocking over boxes and shelving. At one point, the wet sound of splintering bone and rending flesh was all they could hear. It wasn’t difficult to suss out what the Utahraptor was doing. Connor swallowed back the gorge rising in his throat and tried to simply concentrate on being as still as possible whilst he waited to see if they‘d be found, and then summarily torn to bits. It was an uncomfortably familiar feeling. He and Abby leaned on each other and waited, as they had all the other times. It struck him as absurd that there should be other times comparable to their current situation. He nearly laughed out loud in relief when they heard the Theropod leave.
After a few long minutes of silence signaled the dinosaur was most definitely no longer in the room, Connor nudged Abby, and then leaned in close to speak in her ear. He was taking no chances. “First thing, we get our hands free. Turn around and I’ll see if I can get yours with me mouth,” he offered. He knew there was no way his numb fingers could manage it.
Abby shook her head in the negative, “No. I’ll do yours first. You‘d bite my fingers off.” Connor’s lips were swollen and puffy on one side, and he sported a split in his top lip. It had clotted, but it would open and bleed again if he tried to free her that way. She stopped that line of reasoning cold. If she thought too hard on how badly he’d been beaten, she’d lose her ability to think rationally, and they simply couldn’t afford that. She was ever a practical girl, and practicality dictated that she act, not think. Not yet.
She managed to get the wire loosened using her fingertips, although it was slow going. After she’d freed Connor, it was a good long while before he was able to get feeling enough back in his hands to release her. She knotted her torn t-shirt back together, thankful she at least still had her jacket. She’d not want anyone from the ARC to see it; she’d rather just pretend that it had never happened. She’d always found comfort in denial.
They hid for what seemed like ages. Connor was finally able to raise a signal on his mobile and contacted the ARC. As they had surmised, help was already en route. The storm was beginning to clear; a team should arrive within three hours. The Utahraptors made another appearance, but let them be. The second time around, one of them butted its head against the door hard enough for it to nearly break off its hinges. Connor and Abby had held each other tightly and waited for death. It seemed their luck had held on as long as it could. One more direct hit, and the wood splintered. A third never came. The ARC security team, headed by Becker, had arrived.
The medics checked them over, and lucky for them both, neither had sustained serious injuries. Connor would need some time to recover, more so than Abby, but it looked a whole lot worse than it actually was. He’d sustained some lacerations and deep bruising over his face, torso, and worst of all his wrists, but he had no broken bones and apparently no internal injuries. Abby watched over him as the medic cleaned and then applied a dressing to his battered wrists. The thin wire had bit into him deeply as he’d struggled to escape. He’d likely always bear the scars of it. Abby wondered if he’d take to wearing gloves again.
The medic turned to Becker and explained that he was releasing them to him, with the understanding that they were to rest and recover. He gave Abby a script for some heavy painkillers for Connor to go along with the initial dose he’d given him and warned that he was not to take them on an empty stomach. Connor blearily agreed, and climbed down from the ambulance gingerly with Abby and Becker’s aid.
Becker clapped him on the shoulder, “Alright. Let’s get you two home.”
Connor’s fatigue lifted in an instant, “No! I’m going to me mum’s. I promised her. If I promised her, we have to go. It’s important.”
An expression of faint surprise crossed Becker’s face, “We need to find out who was behind this. It’s not safe-”
“Stuff safe! We’ll not be any safer at home than we would be at me mum’s. I’m going. There is nothing in my file to connect me to her,” Connor insisted. Becker looked as if he might argue, but Connor quickly cut him off again, “Those guys followed us from home. That’s where it’s not safe. I‘ll go to me mum‘s for a week. We‘ll keep out of sight, and you do whatever it is you have to… find out what this is all about, yeah?”
Becker hesitated, and Abby jumped in, “Please? He hasn’t seen her since…”
Becker nodded, “Alright… but you contact us every day. I’ll give you both a black box, and if I say you need to go somewhere for your protection, you go. No questions asked.”
They agreed, much to Becker’s relief.
Abby and Connor raided their luggage for a change of clothing, and both changed before they headed northward towards Blackburn. Abby’d had to help Connor into a pair of soft sleep trousers and a t-shirt. The more comfortable he was, the better. This way she could put him to bed straightaway as soon as they got to his mother’s. Connor stayed awake on the ride there, despite the pills the medic had made him swallow before declaring him fit for travel. He was strangely quiet, but Abby was fighting her own internal demons so she let him be.
She nudged him when they neared his home town. She had a sat-nav, but she knew they sometimes weren’t reliable in residential areas. Connor guided her to his home, the wrinkle between his brows giving evidence to his growing unease. He was having second and third and fourth thoughts by this time, but it was far too late to back out now. Abby pulled into a modest yellow house that looked as if it had seen better days. Connor squeezed her hand briefly in reassurance. She wasn’t sure whether it was for her sake, or his own. Perhaps it was both.
She went round to Connor’s side to help him out of the car. He leaned on her for support, but did his best to bear up his own weight. He drew in a deep fortifying breath and blew it out. “Ready?” he asked, his voice tight. Abby just nodded. They crossed the porch to the front door; the interior door stood open and only the glass was closed. She must have been watching for them.
A petite woman with dark hair moved to answer the door. She held a cane in her hand and she’d walked to the door with a heavy limp. She had a kind face, rounder and softer than Connor's. Abby could see the echo of her in his face, especially in her warm chocolate brown eyes. There was no mistaking that Connor was her son. She gave a smile filled with polite confusion to Abby before her eyes registered that the bruised and battered man stood on the porch next to her was her son.
Her eyes widened in abject terror, “Connor? No! He can’t hurt you anymore, he’s gone. He’s gone!"
Connor took her into his arms, "Mum, I'm fine. It wasn't Karl. He's dead, remember?"
She nodded, "I killed him. I remember. For you..."
Connor's eyes snapped up to meet Abby's, afraid of what he would see there. This was not how he'd intended to explain about his mother's peculiarities. He'd hoped that he could gloss over certain things, but there was no hope for that any longer. He'd have to spill the whole humiliating tale. Intellectually he knew he had nothing to be ashamed of, but his heart was not ruled by his mind... never had been, much to his perpetual chagrin. Abby looked stunned, but unflinching. If anyone would understand the horror he and his mother endured, she would.
Connor held his mother close as she cried, ignoring the little flares of pain, "We were... well, it's a long story. But I'm okay. Mum, can we go inside?"
They’d gone in, and his mum had managed to compose herself after she’d had time to make sense of Connor’s story. He told her a story pretty close to the truth, minus the anomaly. They’d all had a cuppa whilst he’d explained, but he’d been anxious to have a lie down. The fatigue he’d fought off on the trip had caught up with him, and he wanted to sleep to escape from his aching body. His mother offered to get his script filled whist he and Abby settled in, and a relieved Abby agreed. She hadn’t wanted to leave him.
He asked Abby if she’d lay next to him, unsure if she would still want to now that the dirty secrets of his past were splitting open at the seams right before her. Abby lay down on the bed and bid him to lay against her chest, his head pillowed on her breasts. Her arms wrapped around him; the tension in his body eased as he felt her warm acceptance. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but found himself speaking after a few long moments of listening to her heart beating steadily beneath his ear. He told Abby all of it.
The limp was from where Connor’s stepfather had shattered his mother’s knee. They had both lived under the shadow of his abuse, although it had taken a long time for his mother to see it. Years. In the beginning, Connor had liked the man that had replaced his father in his mother’s life, but as he grew to know Karl, the initially affable man transformed into something else entirely… especially when he’d been drinking. As time went on, he’d spent less and less time sober. Connor’s initial affection for the man that was able to miraculously make his mother smile again transmuted to fear.
He hadn’t wanted to spoil it for his mum, so when Karl’s abuse began, he simply endured it. He had been putting on a happy face for her for a long time, and he'd gotten very good at it. His mother had sunk into a deep depression when his father had died, and at age ten Connor had begun to learn how to smile rather than cry, to laugh when he wanted to scream, and to shrug off insult when he’d rather respond with violence. Shortly after his father’s death, Connor had found her passed out in her bedroom, pills strewn across the floor. He’d blamed himself for it. If he hadn’t been so needy, if he’d only been able to be strong for her, she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself. From that point forward, his world revolved around keeping her happy and sane.
By the time Karl’s abuse had gotten to the point where he could hardly bear it, he was no longer sure how to detangle himself from it. To keep her happy, he'd remained silent. What he hadn't realized was that his mother was as miserable as he. She'd started drinking to numb the pain, and on top of that she took pills to calm her nerves. That had been a very bleak point in young Connor Temple's life, and he'd hardly thought it could get any worse. It had. Karl had began to openly abuse Connor, and his mother was too lost in her own sea of pills and drink to even notice. She ignored blackened eyes and busted lips, bruises where there should be none. Connor hadn't even needed to lie about it anymore; he figured she didn't care.
It had taken a beating so extreme that Connor had been hospitalized for her to come out of her stupor enough to break free of it. She'd put herself in harm’s way to protect him. Karl had picked up the metal pipe, intent on striking Connor across the back since he'd curled up into a protective ball. Taking a hit such as that on his unprotected spine might have rendered him paralyzed. Instead, his mother had leapt in front of him wielding a kitchen knife. He'd shattered her knee. The police arrived, but it was too late for Karl. Connor's mother had shoved the entire blade of her largest kitchen knife into Karl's stomach, and then sliced upwards. He'd died in moments, eviscerated. Connor had waited for the next blow to fall, trembling and terrified. It never came. Karl would never hurt him again.
He paused for a moment in his story, thinking back to when he’d asked Helen Cutter how she could kill her husband. It was an ironic statement coming from him… the son of a woman who had murdered her husband. That his mum had been justified was beside the point. He reflected that what he’d truly meant was that he didn’t understand how she could kill a man like Nick Cutter, who had gone into the burning building to save her. The man had been good, and kind, and Connor had loved him like a father… and like his father, and his step-father, Nick Cutter had been murdered.
Connor blinked back the tears rising in his eyes, and continued the narrative. He’d not want Abby to think his mother was weak or that she should be pitied. He needed to tell her the rest.
His mother’s road to recovery was a long one, but they managed. Connor’s mother was stronger than she knew; she survived and thrived in the wake of the nightmare they had both endured. She did her best to look after Connor, and if she was a little overprotective, he found it hard to fault her for it. It had been one of the most difficult decisions of his life to leave her for Uni, but she’d seen him wasting his intelligence and potential in blue-collar work and she couldn’t bear it. Although her Connor was an excellent mechanic, and the money he brought in was desperately needed, he should have the chance to be the scientist he always wanted to be. She’d encouraged him to apply for scholarships, and he’d won one.
Abby knew the rest of the story. She wiped the tears that had silently tracked down her face with the back of her hand. She was not one to cry, but Connor’s story had resonated with her own so deeply that she couldn’t help it. She could tell that he’d been afraid to tell her, but if anything, this made her love him even more. He’d laid his past out in front of her so openly, trusting her implicitly. She’d always believed he was among the most courageous men she’d ever known, especially because he didn’t believe himself to be, but he’d just confirmed it to her beyond any question.
He turned in the circle of her arms to look at her face, scared and ashamed but a glimmer of his ever hopeful nature shined through. His dark chocolate eyes took in the tears on her face; stricken, he sat up so that he could face her fully.
He cradled her cheek in his hand, “Abby? Why are ya crying?”
She shook her head, unable to explain it. For all her talk of not being victimized, she’d allowed herself to become embittered by her abuse. She’d shrouded herself in ice, and only with Connor had she began to let herself feel deeply again. She was still working on learning to show it, but after so long… it was hard. That Connor should survive what he had with his pure spirit and faith in the inherent goodness of humanity still intact was humbling. Connor was a good man.
“M’sorry, Abby. Please stop crying.”
She shook her head, “I can’t… but I’m fine, really,” Abby laughed. She cradled his face in her hands and gently kissed him.
Connor returned it, bemused, but intuitively understanding that something between them had changed.
TBC
A/N: Next chapter will be M. I really hope you liked this, and please feed my very needy muse? Comments are love, and they speed her up.