fic: into the woods 1.5/2
FANDOM: PRIMEVAL
Title: Into the Woods (1.5/2)
Word Count: 10,349... 16,061 overall (kill me now)
Rating: M (very mild)
Pairing: Becker/Jess
Spoilers: None really
Warning: See word count above. In fact, I'm having to post this in two lots because it's so stupidly long.
A/N - First of all, seren_ccd I am so, so sorry for the lateness of this. I am also so sorry for the length of it. I really just don't know how this story grew so long; it's absolutely insane. This story could have been told within 2,000 words, but no - no, I had to add 14,000 more in there for no apparent reason. Seriously, so sorry. Anyway, when you have a spare weekend to read this, I hope you enjoy it. :-S
You cannot understand how happy I am to have finally finished this. It's taken over my life for the past month.
Here's the link to the first part of the story
Into the Woods Part Two
“Alright, let’s make camp.”
They were the sweetest words Jess had ever heard in her life. They’d been hiking almost non-stop for about six hours, and Becker hadn’t been lying when he’d told Jess that it would be tough. There wasn’t very much snow on the ground - the trees’ thick canopy had kept much of it out, and as had been brought up in the meeting it had been a mild winter so far - but it was still cold. Jess’ nose and cheeks were frozen, and her fingers were basically numb. She envied the soldiers their gloves - she had a pair herself, of course, but had to remove them whenever she needed to use the GPS or satellite phone, which was often.
There’d already been a couple of times when Jess had had to recalibrate the GPS on the spot, so she felt justified in being there… not that Becker or any of the other soldiers had commented on it. Becker called a halt every time Jess had to send their coordinates to the ARC, since she couldn’t walk and calibrate at the same time, and she tried to be as quick as humanly possible in checking in so they could keep going. She thought things were going smoothly and knew she was being helpful, but Becker’s expression had just got grimmer every single time he called a halt. It was like every time they needed to check in he was reminded that Jess was with them, and he just didn’t want to be reminded of that fact.
It was taking all of Jess’ willpower not to show how worn out she was, but she was determined to keep up and not complain. And, so far, she’d succeeded, though it was very difficult for her. She wasn’t exactly unfit - she went jogging four times a week - but hiking wasn’t something she’d really done before, and certainly not up a freezing wooded mountainside with a bunch of highly-trained super-fit soldiers. She knew that the only reason they were stopping after six hours was because it was too dark to carry on, not because they were tired.
She was though. Of course she was. Her pack had seemed to grow heavier by the hour and her legs and feet were aching - though her boots were proving they were worth the ridiculous amount of money she’d paid for them and she didn’t have any blisters. She’d pushed through the pain, refusing to let her calm and focused exterior slip for even one moment, as she didn’t want to give Becker any ammunition to use against her being there.
It didn’t help that Becker had stuck to her like a limpet for the entire day.
He’d had Lieutenant Hollings take point, which was unusual for him - Jess had monitored him on enough missions to know that Becker always took the lead. But not today - instead he stayed by Jess’ side the entire time. Jess wouldn’t have minded this at all, except she was still annoyed by his treatment of her and it just meant she couldn’t let her façade slip for even a moment. That in turn made her angrier - she wasn’t trained for this kind of mission and she shouldn’t feel ashamed about feeling tired, but instead she was spending half her energy hiding her true feelings.
Stupid Becker.
What made it worse was that he barely spoke to her all day. In fact the entire team was basically silent - Jess assumed they were all concentrating on the job in hand, but she had a feeling that some of the silence was due to the fact that Becker was clearly in a foul mood.
Again, stupid Becker.
Jess resisted the urge to flop down against the nearest tree and instead slowly and calmly removed her heavy pack as the others started to do the same. The ground had levelled out a bit here and the trees were slightly thinner - it was a good place to pitch tents.
Jess was a carrying a lightweight one-person army-issue tent strapped to her rucksack, but she had no idea how to put it up. Ordinarily she would have asked someone for help and not felt embarrassed about it, but instead she took her time calibrating their exact position and relaying their coordinates to the ARC whilst surreptitiously watching as Hollings and Adams pitched their tents… it was actually pretty simple, and she didn’t think she’d have a problem. It was only when she reached for her own tent that she realised it was gone.
Becker was a few feet away, her tent already up and halfway through putting up his own.
Jess felt a childish urge to complain, and she fought it down, trying to hide any reaction at all. “Thanks,” she said reluctantly, before dragging her backpack into her tent and zipping closed the flap behind her before Becker could say anything to her. She needed a minute alone.
Once cut off from the outside world Jess let out a shaky breath and flopped down onto her back, just staring up at the green canvas barely three feet above her head. The tent was tiny, built for one man to lie in and nothing else. She could just about sit up if she bowed her head, so Becker would have no chance. The thought of him being uncomfortable gave Jess a kind of savage pleasure.
Of course he was used to it - it was probably the lap of luxury to him.
Jess sighed and shut her eyes, trying to empty her mind of any thoughts of Becker. She concentrated on her breathing, trying to block out any other sounds and allowing her body to relax into the ground under her. It worked for a few minutes, but soon she couldn’t ignore the sounds of the soldiers walking around the site, talking to each other as they gathered wood for a fire and discussed making dinner. Jess could hear Becker directing it all, and it sounded like he was still next to her tent. Then she heard one of them - she thought it was Adams - calling out that he’d found some tracks, and she heard Becker walking away to investigate.
They’d been finding tracks all day - huge footprints and broken branches that let them know they were on the right track. Those footprints were days old, though, and Jess guessed that these footprints would be no different.
Sighing again, Jess sat up as much as she could and powered up her GPS. She didn’t really want to go back outside right then, but she might as well make herself useful. She hadn’t had time during the day to work on her idea of reading the black boxes, but she set to it now. It didn’t take too long to recalibrate the device and soon she had readings of all of the black boxes in the forest. It was going to make life a lot easier - the black boxes gave far more sophisticated readouts than the hand-held GPS units, and with this the other teams wouldn’t have to worry about checking in themselves.
Jess figured it was time to stop hiding in her tent, and so she grabbed her torch and crawled out through the flap, leaving her rucksack inside.
A couple of the men had started a largish fire and were sitting next to it, talking quietly and warming their hands. Jess wandered over but apart from brief nods they didn’t say anything to her. She sat down on the other side of the fire, near enough to feel its warmth - it was so nice after their long, cold trek.
Jess stifled a yawn - the warmth was creeping over her and making her feel sleepy, and her aching legs were starting to throb. She wanted nothing more than to take off her boots and crawl into her lovely new sleeping bag until the morning. She looked over at Becker - he was standing about twenty feet away, talking to Hollings. From the way he was pointing Jess assumed he was giving orders about setting up a perimeter. She knew better than to offer to help - she could only imagine what Becker’s reaction would be if she suggested she took the first watch.
Becker glanced over at her then and Jess looked away quickly, back at the fire.
Jess realised that she needed to use the loo and shouldn’t put it off anymore - she’d avoided asking for a toilet break during their long trek and now she was pretty much bursting. She sighed and went back to her tent to grab the small EMD she had attached to her rucksack. That in hand she quickly headed out to find a piece of forest thick enough and far enough away from the site to give her some privacy.
A few minutes later, she was only halfway back to the site when Becker stepped out of the shadows at the edge of her torch beam and scared her half to death.
“Oh!”
“Jess!” Becker exclaimed, stomping over to her.
“Jesus, Becker, you scared me!” Jess said, pressing her hand to her heart.
“What the hell were you doing?” Becker demanded as he reached her side.
Jess saw his face as he stepped into her light and that he looked furious. She frowned, confused. “Excuse me?”
“I turned around and you were gone!” Becker exclaimed. “You can’t go wandering off in the dark!”
Jess rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t wandering off, Becker,” she said. “I took a torch, and a radio, and an EMD. And I was only gone two minutes!”
She stepped round him and started walking again, but Becker grabbed her elbow, forcing her to stop.
“I don’t care! What the hell were you doing?” He ground out through gritted teeth. His grip on her elbow tightened and he took a step closer, looming over her side.
Jess was unable to speak for a moment; she was so taken aback by his anger and the intensity in his gaze. Then she snapped out of it and felt her own anger rising up inside her. She glared at him. “What do you think?” She snapped, hating that her cheeks were going red. At least he couldn’t see.
Becker’s grip slackened but he still looked furious. “You can’t go off by yourself,” he said flatly.
“I didn’t want an audience,” Jess said angrily. “And I was two minutes.”
Becker let her go but took yet another step closer to her, so she had to tip her head back to see his face. “Don’t ever leave the camp like that again,” he said. “I need to know where you are at all times.”
Jess returned his glare for a long moment, but though she wanted to argue with him she knew that it wouldn’t do her any good. Not while he was in this mood. “Fine,” she spat, before stepping away from him and starting back towards their tents.
Becker followed her immediately, close to her back. “I mean it Jess,” he said darkly.
“I said fine,” Jess snapped, shooting him another scowl over her shoulder. “What more do you want?”
“I want you not to be here.”
It was said so quietly that Jess almost didn’t hear it over the sounds of the leaves and twigs cracking underfoot. But she did hear it, and she rounded on Becker so fast that he swayed on the spot from stopping so suddenly.
“Well I am here,” she growled, shining her torch in his surprised face. “Oh, and by the way, I’ve recalibrated the GPS to read the black boxes, so the other teams won’t have to do anything now - I can register them remotely and relay their positions to the ARC.”
Becker was silent for a moment, just staring at her, before his face took on the grim expression he’d worn all day and he nodded. “I’ll let them know,” he said.
Jess nodded back. They were in sight of the tents now, and it was time for her to get away from him before she did something she’d regret, like suckerpunch him. The problem with such a course of action is that she’d likely hurt herself more than him.
“Good night, Captain,” she bit out before turning and stomping towards her tent.
Becker followed her. “You need to eat some -”
“I’ve got food in my tent,” Jess snapped, refusing to look at him. “Good night.”
The other soldiers were within earshot now, and they were all staring at her. Furious at them, herself and (mostly) Becker, Jess yanked up the zip of her tent, flung herself inside and yanked it closed behind her.
Uuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhh!!!
She refused to say it out loud, but she was screaming on the inside. What the hell was wrong with the man? Yes, alright, he didn’t want her on the mission, but she was here and there was nothing either of them could do to change that, so surely it was time to let it go?
Becker clearly didn’t think so, and Jess had a feeling he was going to keep up his surly, immature and infuriating behaviour for the rest of the mission.
Jess sat down in her tent and ate one of the MRE packs she had with her - she didn’t care that it was cold, since she knew from music festival experience that heating it up wouldn’t make it taste any better anyway. Jess was shivering by the time she finished her meal and she made short work of pulling on a couple of extra layers out of her rucksack and snuggling into her sleeping bag. She positioned her rucksack where she could use it as a pillow, and lay back.
The temperature had dropped substantially since nightfall, and it was getting colder with every passing half hour. Jess was shivering in her sleeping bag before very long, thinking longingly of the fire outside and wishing she was sitting by it. But there was no way she was going back out there and letting Becker know how cold she was - no way she was giving him the opportunity to make a dig about her pink sleeping bag.
The stupid, stupid man. She knew she shouldn’t let him get to her, knew that he was just acting ridiculous and that none of it was her fault, but she couldn’t help it. It was Becker. Becker didn’t act like this, not ever. He could be snarky, sure, but he was never downright rude, the way he’d been with her this past day. He never belittled anyone and made them feel like they weren’t good enough.
Jess would never in a million years have thought that he would treat her so callously. Not only because it wasn’t in his nature, but because he’d always treated her with nothing but respect, kindness and even affection. She’d thought that they were friends at the very least - and she’d hoped that at some point they’d be more.
Well, she was going to have to forget about that. He clearly was not only very not interested, but also thought she was nothing but a useless little girl. She’d at least thought that he respected her abilities; now that she knew that wasn’t true.
It was liberating, really. For over a year now she’d thought of no one but Becker, not even considered any other man. Not anymore. No, as soon as they found this rhino and she got back from this bloody forest she was going to move on, and Becker could just do as he damn well pleased.
Jess lay there in the darkness, seething with self-righteous anger, but it was hard to keep up her seething when she started shivering again. She’d bought a few disposable heat packs from Millets on whim, just in case, and now she was very glad she had. She got one out of her rucksack and bent it to activate it before shoved it down into the bottom of her sleeping bag to warm her feet. She put another one by her hip to warm her middle. She felt much better for it, and lay back again, enjoying the warmth.
Take that, Becker, she thought as she drifted off to sleep.
It was only a few hours later that she woke up, shivering from the cold again, the heat from her packs long-since faded. Sighing, she reached for her last two packs and activated them, praying they found the stupid rhino quickly the next day so she wouldn’t have to spend another night in this stupid forest.
XXXXX
Jess woke up at the crack of dawn, freezing cold and stiff. Becker and all the other soldiers were, of course, already up and about, and if they’d been as cold as Jess had been during the night they did a very good job of hiding it. Becker was just as surly this morning - if not surlier - than the day before, so Jess did her best to ignore him. This was difficult since he was once again dogging her steps, though he did at least give her five minutes by herself in the woods before they all set off again.
Jess’ recalibration of the GPS the night before meant that their checking in was a much quicker process, so they made good progress through the morning. The terrain didn’t really change, but the temperature was getting noticeably colder as the day wore on, and Jess was dreading having to spend another night camping out.
There were more tracks around than yesterday, so at least they knew they were still going in the right direction… though, again, these tracks were a couple of days old at least, so there was no telling exactly where the rhino was now. All they could do was keep going.
It was well after noon that Jess noticed what looked like a small camera in one of the trees. It was tiny, and well hidden in the foliage, but she noticed light reflecting off the lens and it only took her a moment to spot the small transmitter attached to it.
“Becker,” she said, stopping short.
The only times she’d spoken to him all day was when she needed to stop for their half hour check ins, so he looked confused now. “It’s only been ten minutes,” he said.
“I know,” Jess said, rolling her eyes. She pointed into the trees. “Look - there’s a camera up there.”
Becker squinted up into the trees and Jess saw his eyebrows knit together as he spotted it. “That’s weird,” he said.
Jess shook her head, already reaching for her satellite phone. “Not really,” she said. “It’s probably for environmental surveying - to track endangered species and that kind of thing. I need to phone George.”
“Why?” Becker asked, sounding a bit exasperated. The satellite phone took longer to calibrate than anything else, and he liked to keep the calls to two a day to save time.
Jess refused to let her excitement be dampened by his grouchiness. “Because if there’s one camera, there’ll be more,” she said. “And George might be able to find the pictures transmitted from the cameras and tell us where the creature actually is right now.”
Becker was silent for a moment before he nodded. “Alright, make the call,” he said. He called for all the men to take a break for a minute, and Jess got to work on the phone. It took her a few minutes to put the call through to George, and then a couple more minutes to explain the situation to him. He asked for fifteen minutes to look into it, so she agreed to call him back then. Becker decided they might as well wait until after that call to move on again, so he called for lunch.
Jess sat down with her back to a tree, glad of the rest, and dug around in her bag for one of her MREs. The others were doing the same, though Jess could see that they were all still on alert, ready to jump into action at any moment. Becker didn’t even bother to sit down - he just crouched.
Lieutenant Adams was sitting just a few feet away from Jess, and staring up at the camera in the tree. He shook his head and looked over at Jess. “It doesn’t look like a video camera,” he said.
Jess nodded. “It probably just takes stills, and it’s most probably got a motion sensor on it to trigger the pictures,” she guessed.
“And you really think we’ll be able to use the cameras to find the creature?”
He sounded doubtful, but not in a mean way, and at least someone was actually talking to her. Jess nodded again. “I can’t say for sure, but it looks like there’s a transmitter attached to it, probably sending the photos, so George should be able to track similar signals and hack them to access any other photos, and hopefully we’ll get lucky,” she said. “Also, he’s going to have to delete any photos that were taken, otherwise there’ll be some very confused conservationists.”
Adams smiled. “Well, good spot,” he said, before going back to his lunch.
Jess smiled as well, warmed by the praise. At least someone was starting to appreciate her worth on this mission. She glanced at Becker and saw that he was staring up at the camera, still as stony-faced as ever. She rolled her eyes and concentrated on pretending what she was eating was something else.
Fifteen minutes later she pulled out her satellite phone and called the ARC again. George had struck gold - the rhino had triggered cameras three times in the past two days, the last one as recently as two hours ago. It was heading East around the mountain, not up it like they were going, and they would have to change their heading to intercept it. Jess told Becker the new coordinates and he relayed them to the other two teams before telling them all to get going again. He didn’t say a word of thanks but Jess got a couple of encouraging smiles from some of the others, and she was feeling pretty smug as she shouldered her bag and started off again.
XXXXX
Concluded here.