A Place to Stay
Title: A Place to Stay
Author: echo_fangirl
Characters: Connor/Lester
Rating: G
Words: 2967
Disclaimer: Not mine, as nice as it would be
Spoilers: 4.01, 4.02
Summary: Connor left some things behind at Lester's flat when he was stranded. Now he has to collect them.
---
The taxi pulled up outside the main gate of Lester's building. Connor paid the driver using the credit card that the ARC had supplied him with until his normal bank account had been unfrozen, and approached the guard station. He smiled at the guard, hoping he didn't look as nervous as he felt.
"Hi, I'm here to see James Lester? My name..."
"Go on through, Connor," winked the guard, "Lester's already phoned in ahead. Still remember the way?"
Connor nodded. The security guard did look familiar, he supposed, from back in the time before. It was funny how his entire life had been broken into three chunks now; the time before the year, the time during the year, and now the time after the year. Even stranger was the way the time before had become ethereal and dream-like in his memory. Connor smiled at the guard, gave a little mock salute.
"Yeah, no problems. Cheers mate."
Connor forced himself to slow down as he took the short, winding road to the main door. The carefully manicured grassy hills on either side left him feeling exposed and vulnerable to attack, pushing every one of his hard earned survival instincts into overdrive.
He knew his level of anxiety was excessive. There weren't many places in the world safer than right here, right now. He even had an official invitation to be here, for goodness sake. Well, sort of an official invitation. Lester's actual words had been something along the lines of "You'd better collect all the things you left cluttering up my spare room, before I donate them to the charity shop."
Even so, Connor's finger hovered over the buzzer labelled 'Lester' for several seconds before he pushed it. A moment later, he realised that he had no idea what to say when Lester answered. They hadn't even been alone in the same room together since he got back. Their relationship had been fledgling at best before the year away. He had no idea where it was now.
"Connor?" came Lester's voice, tinny through the little intercom speaker.
"Yeah," answered Connor, before he realised that he was supposed to hold down the little intercom button while he spoke. He rapidly pushed it, then, with what he hoped was a more confident tone, repeated "Yeah, it's me."
There was a buzz that indicated that the main door had been unlocked, and Connor headed in.
---
Connor's first welcome, unexpectedly, was not from Lester. It was from two embarrassingly excited diictodons.
"Nancy!" he squawked in surprise, as he was almost bowled over by the small leathery cannonball of excitement. Sid ran up a moment later, biting the cuff on Connor's trouser leg and pulling at it playfully. Connor crouched down, letting the two creatures paw at him and run tight rings around his ankles, nipping affectionately at his clothes all the while.
"I see the two terrors have found their master again," Lester observed dryly from the end of the hall. Connor looked up.
"I can't believe you kept them," he said, grinning. He scratched the back of Nancy's neck, and she made a barking whine of appreciation. "Why didn't you put the in the menagerie? Like Rex and the Mammoth?"
"The menagerie is very firmly built, and somewhat lacking in burrowing opportunities. They would have been bored beyond measure without access to my personal items to destroy." Lester replied, watching the diictodons' enthusiastic prancing from a distance. "When you three are done reacquainting yourselves, come through."
With the two creatures trailing after him, Connor went through to the main living area after Lester. The room was almost exactly as he remembered it. Lester was still a creature of habit then, loathe to change anything once it was to his liking.
"Your things are all still in your room," Lester called from, apparently, the kitchen. "You can head on up. Did you want a drink? Tea perhaps?"
"Yeah, tea thanks, that'd be great." Connor answered. He wandered up the stairs, then gazed thoughtfully at the door to his old room. He felt quietly pleased that Lester had not referred to it as the 'spare' room, that augured well. The door was closed. He opened it. "Have you... Oh."
The room was in the exact same state of benign chaos that it had been in the day he had left. The bed was still unmade, hurriedly pulled to, and the comic he'd been reading the night before the last day still lay open on the small side table.
"Something wrong, Connor?" Lester's voice was suddenly very close behind him. Connor looked around to see that Lester was hovering a yard or so back, watching him. Connor shook his head.
"No, nothing wrong. I just... It's exactly how it was when I left. I sort of thought you'd have packed it all away by now. You know, stacked it all up in boxes or something."
Lester raised an eyebrow.
"I thought I had made it clear when you lived here, Connor. You clean up your own mess. I wasn't going to set a precedent by cleaning it up for you, no matter where in prehistory you decided to hide."
Connor smiled, then looked back into the room, running his eyes over all his various bits and pieces.
"So you never once went in just to adjust things a little bit? In a whole year?" He asked
"I did remove a sandwich you had left on the side board after a few weeks. And there was the time Nancy decided that she was going to take all her meals in there to eat. I expect she was merely expressing her displeasure at your absence, but the scraps left behind were beginning to smell stale and unpleasant."
"And the pillows?" Connor gestured to the head of the bed, where there was an empty space in the place his favourite pillow normally lived.
"Ah, yes... I needed to use those. You can have them back now, of course."
Connor looked back at Lester then, noting that for just the barest hint of a moment Lester almost seemed embarrassed. Then the whistle of the kettle interrupted them.
"Ah, water's done." Lester said. "You still take your tea black with an unhealthy amount of sugar?"
---
They sat on separate sofas, sipping quietly at their tea. God, had Connor ever missed tea. Especially with sugar. In the Cretaceous they'd still been able to steep various leaves and herbs in hot water, but the attempts had always been bitter and left an unpleasant after taste. The sweetness of Lester's tea positively danced on his tongue.
"So do I have your forgiveness then?" Lester asked. It wasn't really a request, more of an expression of curiosity, but even so it had an edge to it.
"Forgiveness for what?" Connor asked, genuinely puzzled.
"On your first day back, when Burton explained the new anomaly handling procedures, and the rules about the military presence on the team... When I told you that it had been my idea... I'll admit I had never considered you to be the sort to wound so effectively with a look."
"Oh, that." Connor said, dropping his gaze. "Well yeah, I guess I was a bit surprised... But it's all sorted now, right? I mean, Abby and me, we're back on the team. The rule's been ditched. All's well, yeah?"
Lester took another sip of his tea.
"Not quite, I'm afraid. Yes, you and Abby are on the team, but only due to a technicality. You needn't worry, your positions are quite safe," he hastened to reassure Connor. "At least, as safe as they ever were. But the rule is still technically in place. The two of you are... exceptions."
"Oh." Connor said again. He thought this through for a moment, well aware of Lester's eyes on him. "You know Cutter wouldn't have approved. He thought the military were all trigger happy idiots, trampling all over time lines like no one's business."
Lester sighed.
"I'm well aware of the feelings Cutter held towards the military, but given the circumstances he was in no position to argue." Lester put his tea cup down carefully on the table, then clasped his hands together. "It was... complicated. We lost a lot of people in a very short time. People who weren't expendable."
"No one's be expendable." Interjected Connor, a touch of indignation colouring his voice.
"No, of course not. But sometimes..." Lester signed and leaned back on the sofa, watching Connor critically. "You know, you weren't the only one fired."
Connor looked momentarily startled by the non-sequitur.
"I know. Abby..."
"I'm not talking about Abby, Connor. Or Quinn, or even Captain Becker." interrupted Lester. Connor's brow furrowed, then his eyebrows shot up.
"They fired you?"
"They fired everyone, Connor, the entire operation. There were investigations. Questions. I said it before, it was a difficult time for all of us..." Lester trailed away to silence.
They sat there, unspeaking, for several minutes. Connor was mulling over Lester's most recent revelation, while Lester instead chose to retrieve his tea from the table and sip from it passively.
Eventually, Lester broke the silence.
"You'd best get started with your packing. I understand you and Abby will be staying with the young Miss Parker?"
"Yeah," confirmed Connor. He stood up from the chair, making it half way to the stairs before he remembered that he was still holding his tea cup. He went back to the coffee table to put it down, then dug his hands in his pockets awkwardly. "There's a fair bit of stuff to pack though, I'm not sure if I'll be able to take it all today. I didn't really... Well I guess I never really plan these things properly." He offered Lester a self-deprecating grin, which was met with a single raised eyebrow. "Would it be okay if I just took a few personal things today? Some clothes and stuff? I'll come back for the rest of it soon, obviously. And I'll even bring boxes next time."
Lester nodded. "That will be fine Connor. Your things have been cluttering up my spare room for over a year now, a few more days will hardly break me. But don't go getting ideas about using my spare room as a second closet."
Connor shook his head vigorously.
"No, course not. I'll just go up there now and start getting some things together." Connor gestured in the general direction of the room. They stood there for a moment, like they were both waiting for the other to say something, but then the moment passed and Connor turned away for the stairs. He made it two steps before Lester interrupted.
"Will you stay?" Lester asked, then blinked as though he had startled himself. He recovered almost instantly though. "For dinner, I mean. It's almost six, and by the time you've got the room sorted, it'll be close to dinner time. It's been a while since I've cooked for two, of course, but I can probably put together a nice pasta?"
"Yeah, okay." Smiled Connor, then he hesitated. "I should probably call Abby first, she'll be expecting me to... But yeah, I'd really like that."
Lester nodded briskly. "Good. You know where the phone is. I'll be in the kitchen."
---
Pasta. Yet one more thing to add to the increasingly long list of things which Connor had missed in the Cretaceous. Not that he was trying to be picky, obviously root vegetables were very sustaining, and if you were clever you could sometimes pretend that they were just plain old regular potatoes. But pasta...
Connor had to make a conscious effort not to just wolf it all down. It wasn't that he didn't want to savour the flavour - obviously he wanted to make the taste of bolognese sauce last for as long as humanly possible. It was just that leisurely dining was not a luxury afforded to him while stranded in the Cretaceous, and survival had trained him into eating fast.
"The children will be coming to visit this weekend," Lester offered by way of small talk. "They asked after you a lot while you were away. I'm sure they'd like to see you, if you're not too busy."
Connor hesitated. The first thing which occurred to him was how surprised he was that Lester's children hadn't been told that Connor was dead, just that he was missing. It was yet another confirmation that Lester hadn't given up on him, not in that whole year, and he felt a swell of gratitude for that. But the second thought which occurred to Connor was that Lester had just invited him over on the weekend.
All evening they'd been so neatly skating around the fact that, before he and Abby had been stranded, Connor and Lester had been in the formative stages of a very private relationship. They'd so efficiently skirted that particular topic tonight, in fact, that Connor had come to the conclusion that it had officially been relegated to the pile of Things Which Aren't Talked About. But if Lester was inviting him over on the weekend...
Lester had apparently taken Connor's hesitance for rejection though, and immediately started engineering them both a face-saving way to back out of the conversation.
"Of course, you and Abby will probably be spending most of your time looking at apartments. The two of you wouldn't want to remain Jess' house guests indefinitely, I only thought to mention it in case you happened to be in the area."
"Yeah, no, of course... I mean, we won't be looking at apartments the whole weekend, that'd drive us both batty. And I'd love to catch up with the kids, all the little Lesters, hear their latest news. Yeah, I'll definitely come by." Connor offered his best encouraging smile, but Lester was looking down at his bowl and didn't see it.
They ate in relative silence for a few minutes. "You're picking at your food." Observed Connor.
"Not all of us feel the need to treat eating like a competitive sport," Lester retorted, but his words lacked their normal sharpness.
"Right, yeah, sorry. Bad habit." Connor looked sheepish. He carefully spiked a single piece of pasta with his fork and ate it, deliberately making the last few pieces go more slowly. Even so, the bowl was soon empty, and Connor carefully placed the fork down and wiped his mouth with the serviette. "I guess it's getting late. I should probably go. Abby and Jess will be wondering where I got to."
The clatter of Lester's fork being dropped startled them both.
"Of course. I didn't mean to keep you so late," Lester covered, rapidly picking up the fork and then placing it down more carefully. In that act, Connor noticed something unusual.
"Hey, your hands are shaking." He observed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lester replied, pressing his hands down on the surface of the table with significantly more force than nonchalance would normally permit. Connor watched Lester thoughtfully for a moment, then reached across the table and placed his own hand lightly over Lester's. He could feel the tendons standing out, taught against the back of Lester's hand.
"Are you... Is everything okay?" He asked, gently.
"Fine. Everything is quite all right." Lester attempted to reassure Connor. "I just... I forgot for a moment."
"Forgot?" Connor prompted, gently.
"That you weren't staying here any more." Lester clarified. "For a moment I forgot that you would be going back to Abby tonight."
"Oh, right." Connor chewed thoughtfully at his lower lip, his fingers absent-mindedly stroking the back of Lester's hand. "Do you want me to stay here tonight instead?" he asked. Lester dropped his gaze, watching Connor's fingers tracing patterns idle patterns on his skin.
"I wouldn't ask that, Connor. Abby would miss you, and you would miss Abby. It's very clear that you two need each other at the moment."
Connor resisted the urge to take Lester's chin and draw him up out of his self-imposed isolation.
"That's not what I asked, James. I asked if you wanted me to stay here tonight."
"I had thought that much was self evident. I want you to stay here every night." Lester's words were so softly spoken that Connor had to strain to hear them. "I want you to stay here, with me, and I never want you to leave. But more than that, I want you to be happy. And I understand that that means that you need to go back to Abby."
Connor let go of Lester's hand then, and leaned back in his dining chair.
"Are you sure that's what that means? Only... Well you sound awfully sure about what would make me happy, but you haven't actually asked me"
Lester looked up at that.
"I..." he trailed off.
"Abby knows about us, you know. I told her, back when we first got stranded. She would understand. She will understand... If that's what we both decide we want." Connor went to pick up his fork again, only to realise that he had no food left to eat. "The pasta was really good, thanks. You should eat yours before it gets cold. Or before I steal it. I spent the last twelve months on the brink of starvation, you know." He smiled playfully.
Lester swallowed, looking at Connor with the exact same intensity that a man stranded in the Cretaceous for a year would look at a cappuccino. It was an expression Connor could sympathise with all too well. Hopeful, but terrified that a wonderful illusion might be stolen away at any moment.
"Do you... want to stay here tonight?" Lester asked, his words guarded and ever so carefully chosen.
Connor grinned.
"I thought you'd never ask."
Author: echo_fangirl
Characters: Connor/Lester
Rating: G
Words: 2967
Disclaimer: Not mine, as nice as it would be
Spoilers: 4.01, 4.02
Summary: Connor left some things behind at Lester's flat when he was stranded. Now he has to collect them.
---
The taxi pulled up outside the main gate of Lester's building. Connor paid the driver using the credit card that the ARC had supplied him with until his normal bank account had been unfrozen, and approached the guard station. He smiled at the guard, hoping he didn't look as nervous as he felt.
"Hi, I'm here to see James Lester? My name..."
"Go on through, Connor," winked the guard, "Lester's already phoned in ahead. Still remember the way?"
Connor nodded. The security guard did look familiar, he supposed, from back in the time before. It was funny how his entire life had been broken into three chunks now; the time before the year, the time during the year, and now the time after the year. Even stranger was the way the time before had become ethereal and dream-like in his memory. Connor smiled at the guard, gave a little mock salute.
"Yeah, no problems. Cheers mate."
Connor forced himself to slow down as he took the short, winding road to the main door. The carefully manicured grassy hills on either side left him feeling exposed and vulnerable to attack, pushing every one of his hard earned survival instincts into overdrive.
He knew his level of anxiety was excessive. There weren't many places in the world safer than right here, right now. He even had an official invitation to be here, for goodness sake. Well, sort of an official invitation. Lester's actual words had been something along the lines of "You'd better collect all the things you left cluttering up my spare room, before I donate them to the charity shop."
Even so, Connor's finger hovered over the buzzer labelled 'Lester' for several seconds before he pushed it. A moment later, he realised that he had no idea what to say when Lester answered. They hadn't even been alone in the same room together since he got back. Their relationship had been fledgling at best before the year away. He had no idea where it was now.
"Connor?" came Lester's voice, tinny through the little intercom speaker.
"Yeah," answered Connor, before he realised that he was supposed to hold down the little intercom button while he spoke. He rapidly pushed it, then, with what he hoped was a more confident tone, repeated "Yeah, it's me."
There was a buzz that indicated that the main door had been unlocked, and Connor headed in.
---
Connor's first welcome, unexpectedly, was not from Lester. It was from two embarrassingly excited diictodons.
"Nancy!" he squawked in surprise, as he was almost bowled over by the small leathery cannonball of excitement. Sid ran up a moment later, biting the cuff on Connor's trouser leg and pulling at it playfully. Connor crouched down, letting the two creatures paw at him and run tight rings around his ankles, nipping affectionately at his clothes all the while.
"I see the two terrors have found their master again," Lester observed dryly from the end of the hall. Connor looked up.
"I can't believe you kept them," he said, grinning. He scratched the back of Nancy's neck, and she made a barking whine of appreciation. "Why didn't you put the in the menagerie? Like Rex and the Mammoth?"
"The menagerie is very firmly built, and somewhat lacking in burrowing opportunities. They would have been bored beyond measure without access to my personal items to destroy." Lester replied, watching the diictodons' enthusiastic prancing from a distance. "When you three are done reacquainting yourselves, come through."
With the two creatures trailing after him, Connor went through to the main living area after Lester. The room was almost exactly as he remembered it. Lester was still a creature of habit then, loathe to change anything once it was to his liking.
"Your things are all still in your room," Lester called from, apparently, the kitchen. "You can head on up. Did you want a drink? Tea perhaps?"
"Yeah, tea thanks, that'd be great." Connor answered. He wandered up the stairs, then gazed thoughtfully at the door to his old room. He felt quietly pleased that Lester had not referred to it as the 'spare' room, that augured well. The door was closed. He opened it. "Have you... Oh."
The room was in the exact same state of benign chaos that it had been in the day he had left. The bed was still unmade, hurriedly pulled to, and the comic he'd been reading the night before the last day still lay open on the small side table.
"Something wrong, Connor?" Lester's voice was suddenly very close behind him. Connor looked around to see that Lester was hovering a yard or so back, watching him. Connor shook his head.
"No, nothing wrong. I just... It's exactly how it was when I left. I sort of thought you'd have packed it all away by now. You know, stacked it all up in boxes or something."
Lester raised an eyebrow.
"I thought I had made it clear when you lived here, Connor. You clean up your own mess. I wasn't going to set a precedent by cleaning it up for you, no matter where in prehistory you decided to hide."
Connor smiled, then looked back into the room, running his eyes over all his various bits and pieces.
"So you never once went in just to adjust things a little bit? In a whole year?" He asked
"I did remove a sandwich you had left on the side board after a few weeks. And there was the time Nancy decided that she was going to take all her meals in there to eat. I expect she was merely expressing her displeasure at your absence, but the scraps left behind were beginning to smell stale and unpleasant."
"And the pillows?" Connor gestured to the head of the bed, where there was an empty space in the place his favourite pillow normally lived.
"Ah, yes... I needed to use those. You can have them back now, of course."
Connor looked back at Lester then, noting that for just the barest hint of a moment Lester almost seemed embarrassed. Then the whistle of the kettle interrupted them.
"Ah, water's done." Lester said. "You still take your tea black with an unhealthy amount of sugar?"
---
They sat on separate sofas, sipping quietly at their tea. God, had Connor ever missed tea. Especially with sugar. In the Cretaceous they'd still been able to steep various leaves and herbs in hot water, but the attempts had always been bitter and left an unpleasant after taste. The sweetness of Lester's tea positively danced on his tongue.
"So do I have your forgiveness then?" Lester asked. It wasn't really a request, more of an expression of curiosity, but even so it had an edge to it.
"Forgiveness for what?" Connor asked, genuinely puzzled.
"On your first day back, when Burton explained the new anomaly handling procedures, and the rules about the military presence on the team... When I told you that it had been my idea... I'll admit I had never considered you to be the sort to wound so effectively with a look."
"Oh, that." Connor said, dropping his gaze. "Well yeah, I guess I was a bit surprised... But it's all sorted now, right? I mean, Abby and me, we're back on the team. The rule's been ditched. All's well, yeah?"
Lester took another sip of his tea.
"Not quite, I'm afraid. Yes, you and Abby are on the team, but only due to a technicality. You needn't worry, your positions are quite safe," he hastened to reassure Connor. "At least, as safe as they ever were. But the rule is still technically in place. The two of you are... exceptions."
"Oh." Connor said again. He thought this through for a moment, well aware of Lester's eyes on him. "You know Cutter wouldn't have approved. He thought the military were all trigger happy idiots, trampling all over time lines like no one's business."
Lester sighed.
"I'm well aware of the feelings Cutter held towards the military, but given the circumstances he was in no position to argue." Lester put his tea cup down carefully on the table, then clasped his hands together. "It was... complicated. We lost a lot of people in a very short time. People who weren't expendable."
"No one's be expendable." Interjected Connor, a touch of indignation colouring his voice.
"No, of course not. But sometimes..." Lester signed and leaned back on the sofa, watching Connor critically. "You know, you weren't the only one fired."
Connor looked momentarily startled by the non-sequitur.
"I know. Abby..."
"I'm not talking about Abby, Connor. Or Quinn, or even Captain Becker." interrupted Lester. Connor's brow furrowed, then his eyebrows shot up.
"They fired you?"
"They fired everyone, Connor, the entire operation. There were investigations. Questions. I said it before, it was a difficult time for all of us..." Lester trailed away to silence.
They sat there, unspeaking, for several minutes. Connor was mulling over Lester's most recent revelation, while Lester instead chose to retrieve his tea from the table and sip from it passively.
Eventually, Lester broke the silence.
"You'd best get started with your packing. I understand you and Abby will be staying with the young Miss Parker?"
"Yeah," confirmed Connor. He stood up from the chair, making it half way to the stairs before he remembered that he was still holding his tea cup. He went back to the coffee table to put it down, then dug his hands in his pockets awkwardly. "There's a fair bit of stuff to pack though, I'm not sure if I'll be able to take it all today. I didn't really... Well I guess I never really plan these things properly." He offered Lester a self-deprecating grin, which was met with a single raised eyebrow. "Would it be okay if I just took a few personal things today? Some clothes and stuff? I'll come back for the rest of it soon, obviously. And I'll even bring boxes next time."
Lester nodded. "That will be fine Connor. Your things have been cluttering up my spare room for over a year now, a few more days will hardly break me. But don't go getting ideas about using my spare room as a second closet."
Connor shook his head vigorously.
"No, course not. I'll just go up there now and start getting some things together." Connor gestured in the general direction of the room. They stood there for a moment, like they were both waiting for the other to say something, but then the moment passed and Connor turned away for the stairs. He made it two steps before Lester interrupted.
"Will you stay?" Lester asked, then blinked as though he had startled himself. He recovered almost instantly though. "For dinner, I mean. It's almost six, and by the time you've got the room sorted, it'll be close to dinner time. It's been a while since I've cooked for two, of course, but I can probably put together a nice pasta?"
"Yeah, okay." Smiled Connor, then he hesitated. "I should probably call Abby first, she'll be expecting me to... But yeah, I'd really like that."
Lester nodded briskly. "Good. You know where the phone is. I'll be in the kitchen."
---
Pasta. Yet one more thing to add to the increasingly long list of things which Connor had missed in the Cretaceous. Not that he was trying to be picky, obviously root vegetables were very sustaining, and if you were clever you could sometimes pretend that they were just plain old regular potatoes. But pasta...
Connor had to make a conscious effort not to just wolf it all down. It wasn't that he didn't want to savour the flavour - obviously he wanted to make the taste of bolognese sauce last for as long as humanly possible. It was just that leisurely dining was not a luxury afforded to him while stranded in the Cretaceous, and survival had trained him into eating fast.
"The children will be coming to visit this weekend," Lester offered by way of small talk. "They asked after you a lot while you were away. I'm sure they'd like to see you, if you're not too busy."
Connor hesitated. The first thing which occurred to him was how surprised he was that Lester's children hadn't been told that Connor was dead, just that he was missing. It was yet another confirmation that Lester hadn't given up on him, not in that whole year, and he felt a swell of gratitude for that. But the second thought which occurred to Connor was that Lester had just invited him over on the weekend.
All evening they'd been so neatly skating around the fact that, before he and Abby had been stranded, Connor and Lester had been in the formative stages of a very private relationship. They'd so efficiently skirted that particular topic tonight, in fact, that Connor had come to the conclusion that it had officially been relegated to the pile of Things Which Aren't Talked About. But if Lester was inviting him over on the weekend...
Lester had apparently taken Connor's hesitance for rejection though, and immediately started engineering them both a face-saving way to back out of the conversation.
"Of course, you and Abby will probably be spending most of your time looking at apartments. The two of you wouldn't want to remain Jess' house guests indefinitely, I only thought to mention it in case you happened to be in the area."
"Yeah, no, of course... I mean, we won't be looking at apartments the whole weekend, that'd drive us both batty. And I'd love to catch up with the kids, all the little Lesters, hear their latest news. Yeah, I'll definitely come by." Connor offered his best encouraging smile, but Lester was looking down at his bowl and didn't see it.
They ate in relative silence for a few minutes. "You're picking at your food." Observed Connor.
"Not all of us feel the need to treat eating like a competitive sport," Lester retorted, but his words lacked their normal sharpness.
"Right, yeah, sorry. Bad habit." Connor looked sheepish. He carefully spiked a single piece of pasta with his fork and ate it, deliberately making the last few pieces go more slowly. Even so, the bowl was soon empty, and Connor carefully placed the fork down and wiped his mouth with the serviette. "I guess it's getting late. I should probably go. Abby and Jess will be wondering where I got to."
The clatter of Lester's fork being dropped startled them both.
"Of course. I didn't mean to keep you so late," Lester covered, rapidly picking up the fork and then placing it down more carefully. In that act, Connor noticed something unusual.
"Hey, your hands are shaking." He observed.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lester replied, pressing his hands down on the surface of the table with significantly more force than nonchalance would normally permit. Connor watched Lester thoughtfully for a moment, then reached across the table and placed his own hand lightly over Lester's. He could feel the tendons standing out, taught against the back of Lester's hand.
"Are you... Is everything okay?" He asked, gently.
"Fine. Everything is quite all right." Lester attempted to reassure Connor. "I just... I forgot for a moment."
"Forgot?" Connor prompted, gently.
"That you weren't staying here any more." Lester clarified. "For a moment I forgot that you would be going back to Abby tonight."
"Oh, right." Connor chewed thoughtfully at his lower lip, his fingers absent-mindedly stroking the back of Lester's hand. "Do you want me to stay here tonight instead?" he asked. Lester dropped his gaze, watching Connor's fingers tracing patterns idle patterns on his skin.
"I wouldn't ask that, Connor. Abby would miss you, and you would miss Abby. It's very clear that you two need each other at the moment."
Connor resisted the urge to take Lester's chin and draw him up out of his self-imposed isolation.
"That's not what I asked, James. I asked if you wanted me to stay here tonight."
"I had thought that much was self evident. I want you to stay here every night." Lester's words were so softly spoken that Connor had to strain to hear them. "I want you to stay here, with me, and I never want you to leave. But more than that, I want you to be happy. And I understand that that means that you need to go back to Abby."
Connor let go of Lester's hand then, and leaned back in his dining chair.
"Are you sure that's what that means? Only... Well you sound awfully sure about what would make me happy, but you haven't actually asked me"
Lester looked up at that.
"I..." he trailed off.
"Abby knows about us, you know. I told her, back when we first got stranded. She would understand. She will understand... If that's what we both decide we want." Connor went to pick up his fork again, only to realise that he had no food left to eat. "The pasta was really good, thanks. You should eat yours before it gets cold. Or before I steal it. I spent the last twelve months on the brink of starvation, you know." He smiled playfully.
Lester swallowed, looking at Connor with the exact same intensity that a man stranded in the Cretaceous for a year would look at a cappuccino. It was an expression Connor could sympathise with all too well. Hopeful, but terrified that a wonderful illusion might be stolen away at any moment.
"Do you... want to stay here tonight?" Lester asked, his words guarded and ever so carefully chosen.
Connor grinned.
"I thought you'd never ask."