Primeval fic: A Twist in a Relative Timeline 1/3
Title: A Twist in a Relative Timeline
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything anyone recognises and I'm not making any money from it.
Rating: PG, maybe PG-13
Summary: When time travel's involved, you never know when you'll meet up with old friends.
Notes: So, I'm warning you all now of two things. This is not a slashfic. It's not going to have much, if any, romance in it, definitely no smut. Second, I will be reusing some concepts from this in another fic when I'm done with this one, and it'll be weirdly derivative. Anyhoodle, this is just so everyone knows now.
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Stephen Hart had a more or less normal childhood as these things are reckoned. Two parents, reasonably affectionate, not overly affluent, but not poor either. Both fairly well-educated, but neither one an intellectual. He played football and rugby, more football than rugby, grumbled through his dad's cricket, put up with being dragged to art museums and plays and things by both parents and went through the normal childhood stages of interest in cars and lorries, cartoon superheroes, obsessive sporting collections of football jerseys and the like and some stupid extreme sport junkets. He was good in school, though hardly one of the swots at the top of the class, was never bullied because he was too popular and good looking to stand for it and was usually well-liked by his peers and teachers.
There was one thing that made him a little odd, though. And it could be traced back to a single childhood event. It always left his parents baffled how one incident of a really weird dream, sleepwalking into a mud puddle in some clothes they simply could not recall getting for him in the dead of night, had wrought such a change in little Stevie Hart.
He'd woken them at three in the morning, screaming the house down from outside, claiming he'd been kidnapped by someone, taken from the house, held captive for days and had only just returned. The story, while imaginitive, was ludicrous. But it had a tremendous impact on the young Hart. For nearly a year, the five-year-old had insisted that the whole story was real in the face of his deeply worried parents, child psychologists and educators. They'd pulled him out of school right quick when the other parents got upset with his cockamamie stories, arranging for homeschooling until the issue was resolved.
Stephen did eventually give in. But the whole strange episode created an obsession for him, with animals, hunting, tracking and guns that left his family (generally quite pacifist) baffled. They were proud of his accomplishments, the shooting titles, the skills that he showed off to younger cousins in following foxes through the brush back to dens and all the time he spent getting his degrees at uni in biology and chemistry.
He'd mostly forgotten about it, letting that part of his childhood go by the wayside, because the whole notion of what he'd believed at age five was too ridiculous for words, really. But he nearly had a heart attack when, in his position as Nick Cutter's assistant, he was delegated the task of teaching an eager class of post-graduate students.
It was a perfectly ordinary day, he was shuffling the papers he had lined up for the lecture in front of him when he saw him. A young man that looked like a ten-years-older version of the imaginary teenager who'd been his idol when he was five. The face was the same, and there was something in the way he moved that put him in mind of that boy as well. Stephen was nearly on his way over to ask, when the student managed to fall all over his own feet, sending papers and books and bag and laptop spinning in every direction.
Obviously it wasn't him. His imaginary hero remained imaginary.
As ever, he put the whole thing from his mind and concentrated on the present. That didn't help him, because he'd studiously avoided contact with the student in question out of fear he'd say something idiotic, when he came bumbling up to them, declaring his name to be Connor Temple.
"Hey, there. What's your name?"
"Stephen. But my mum and dad call me Stevie."
"Stevie or Stephen? Which do you prefer?"
"Stevie. What about you? Who're you?"
"I'm Connor."
He just couldn't help himself. He'd let slip about Helen's disappearance, and the sympathetic look was the exact one he'd remembered. But this was stupid. And it only felt increasingly idiotic as the day went on and this Connor faffed about, making more noise than anything should be able to make just walking, doing stupid things and generally annoying everyone about.
"It’s a gorgonopsid. It’s a compact killing machine, and it’s got incredible power. Stephen, if it is still out there, then you have to find it. Fast." There it was again. Serious, sharp, clearheaded and brilliant. He'd seen that look before.
"I need you to watch, Stevie. There isn't much time, and I need to know if anything changes. Climb the tree, and if you see anything weird in there, anything at all, blow the whistle. More important, if you think something bad's about to happen to you, use it. I'll come."
It made him ask, taking him seriously, "What about you?"
No. It wasn't him. "You, mighty hunter. Me, I’m more logistics and, you know, backup." The cheesy smile and back pat made him grind his teeth.
The whole back and forth, yes and no, it hurt oddly. As if he were to see his father turn into a stranger. Not to mention, the Connor, the one from his childhood hallucination, was his protector, the adult who'd kept him safe from the monsters as a child. He'd been a bit of a talisman when he was scared of the dark. Connor wouldn't have been scared, and would protect him if something horrible happened.
But this Connor was eight years younger than him, was clumsy and foolish and could never have done for little Stevie what the other Connor had. No, it was his imagination run wild.
He just kept getting confused, though. Because the glowing portal was the one he recalled going home through, which lent credence to his year of certainty that he had been taken. Connor's face and voice, so familiar, began to haunt him. And with everything, he'd see these small moments where he was certain flashes of that boy he'd wanted to be growing up would appear.
Driving off a mosasaur with nothing more than a paddle.
Fearless as he stood between gun sights and his mad, dying friend.
An awareness of the attacking future predators that seemed to almost presage the dogs and the sound of the oscilloscope.
Outrunning a raptor, diving under the metal barrier at the last second.
Genius with technology that allowed improvisation and instant adaptation.
The hallmarks he'd associated with his Connor, bravery, physical skill, brilliance, they were all there.
Intermittently.
Because every time he was sure, every time he thought he'd approach and ask, he'd be filled with doubt all over again.
Running across a golf course, accompanied by a lizard, chased by a pteradon.
Mistaking a man in a mascot suit for a real cat.
Every bit of his silliness about Abby, Nick, himself and Jenny.
They couldn't be him. They weren't Connor. But the flashes of what he once was made Stephen let him in closer. Let him cling, foolishly. Because some childish part of him saw Connor's face and felt safe again in ways he hadn't since he was five and terrified, alone in his bedroom, certain they'd come for him again. And maybe, just maybe, this Connor was his Claudia Brown. Lost in time, due to time and paradox, someone he'd never get back again, left with only the pale imitation.
After the initial confusion with Nick over the imaginary woman, he'd let Nick's obsession go, because he was faced with the same every time he spoke to the endearingly smiling and clumsy young man in the waistcoat and fedora.
He never told anyone, though. Partly from habit and partly from a certainty they'd think he was mad, and partly out of fear they'd all believe him. Because if it was true, what did that mean for who and what he was, and what Connor was to him?
He'd been distracted from his issues with Connor when Helen came back again, worming her way into his life. He thought he'd seen Connor looking at him reproachfully the first night he'd let her into his flat and his bed again, but that had to have been his imagination, because if the Connor he worked with were that Connor, he'd have said something, wouldn't he? But then again, Helen had seemed to bring out something overtly and madly klutzy in Connor. If he didn't know better (did he or didn't he, though? He didn't know) he'd have thought Connor was hiding behind his nerd persona around her for some reason.
None of it mattered now.
He was going to die, torn apart by the animals his Connor had saved him from, had showed off to him from the safety of treetops and piqued his interest in them as a child. It almost felt appropriate. Connor had risked everything to do what he'd done, for Stephen and the other children there, and now Stephen had thrown everything away for Helen. He'd earned this.
Only one thing left to do. "Tell Abby and Connor . . ."
"One last thing, Stevie."
"Yeah, Connor?"
A cheeky grin that made him feel better about walking through the glow all by himself. "Stay out of trouble."
". . . to stay out of trouble." He hoped Connor would get the message.
He backed away from the door, locking his eyes with Nick's and waiting for the end. But it didn't come, not right away. Because the alpha predators wouldn't share with each other. Not when there was only him there. They fought, and Stephen ducked and wove, because he didn't want to die, he'd put it off as long as he could, and he didn't want to do that to Nick, either. It felt like an eternity until he was faced with fewer predators, but they seemed to have momentarily paused in battling each other.
Then a door to the side cracked open and Connor came through. The animals came on point, but Connor, no longer wearing shoes or socks, a scarf now tightly wrapped around one forearm dropped into a crouch, and told Stephen sharply, "When you can, get behind me. And when this is done . . ."
". . . If I'm not . . . me . . ."
He was creeping forward, producing pills from a pocket, which he dry-swallowed, ". . . If I'm not coherent . . ."
". . . Do whatever you have to do . . ."
". . . To stop me." Then he dove at the raptor, teeth bared, and Stephen knew, it was the same Connor.
He hurried for the door, giving an experimental yank, but Connor had locked them both in, making the same sort of gambit he had years before. All or nothing. And Connor was talking, blood that wasn't his already staining his face and clothes, "I really hadn't expected to have to play Roman Circus again," he nearly growled, ricocheting off the walls like the future predators. Five-year-old Stevie was crawling his way out of thirty-two-year-old Stephen's brain and cheering on his hero.
Then the SFs burst in, armed to the teeth, their automatic weapons dealing with the last of the creatures, and the only creature left was Connor, who looked feral, and reacted to the sight of the guns with widened eyes and a furious launch of himself at the soldiers. Better trained than the heavyset clones of the compound, they got out of the way, jockeying for a position to shoot Connor from.
"No!" Stephen hurled himself in front of Connor. "Don't! Put the guns down." His heart was pounding as he hoped Connor wasn't too far gone, wouldn't misread the situation in his unthinking and instinctive state. They didn't, and Stephen found himself suddenly assaulted by Connor.
"Stephen!" he heard Cutter shout. Heard the orders to do what they had to in order to save Stephen.
He wrenched free and scrambled back. Connor's eyes weren't showing anything but deadly intent, only a recognition that adult males like Stephen had done this to him, unable to differentiate between people, just adults and children. He hurled himself forward, as fast as any of the future predators could move, too fast for a normal person to take aim, Stephen closed his eyes, waiting for the impact . . . which never came.
Connor didn't show any sign of human intellect, but he did show recognition. His nostrils flared as he stood, frozen inches from Stephen. "That's right, Connor," he murmured. "You remember me? Stevie Hart?"
Unfortunately, the moment was broken by Jenny, who sometimes seemed to have the survival instincts of a lemming, squawking, "What?"
Connor whirled, his whole being now focussed on protecting the person he recognised as his charge from a decade before. But whereas lost in a prehistoric forest, running from a mad scientist's lair, a feral semi-human guard dog was a useful thing, faced with otherwise normally friendly soldiers and teammates, those instincts pressing Connor to defend his packmate at all costs were a liability. He was crossing the space, and Stephen was desperately trying to reach after him, to stop him, Jenny's hands lifted the gun she still carried, the SFs followed suit, smarter and faster than the ones from before . . .
Connor went down in a hail of bullets.
"No, no, no, no, no," Stephen moaned, running to Connor's side. "Get a medic and tell them to put restraints on him," he snapped. "Hurry!" He knelt next to Connor, who was barely conscious, but still lost to any sort of human interaction. He stroked the hair on the younger man's head, the way he'd once done when he was five and Connor fifteen, the older boy still feral and mad, but protective of Stevie to the detriment of anything else. "It's okay, Connor. I'll make sure of it."
His friend, that childhood idol he'd only just found again, whined and struggled as Abby, Cutter and Jenny closed in. "Back off," Stephen told them. "It'll be bad enough when the medics get here. He won't remember you. Not right now."
"But he remembers you?" Nick asked, volumes of bafflement in his voice.
And he was five again, faced with doubting grown-ups who couldn't believe a true story if it bit them on the nose, knowing that there was one person he'd trust without reservation, no matter how dangerous he was, no matter what was wrong with him, and that he wanted to make his hero proud. "Of course he does," Stephen said, blinking away tears. "He always did."
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Unsurprisingly, when the medics came and put Connor onto the trolley, he began to panic. He was clearly pushing through the pain, and Stephen cursed, then ignored everyone's protests to hop on with him, wishing, for the first time in his life, that he was a smaller person, physically. It did the trick, Connor recognising that Stephen wasn't leaving him to vultures, soothed by the presence of someone he'd identified as a packmate, he let the medics start to treat him and strap him down.
He didn't get off the trolley until they'd sedated Connor and he'd fallen asleep. Then, ignoring Jenny, who was demanding answers, he headed straight for the car, Cutter and Abby in his wake.
"Stephen," Cutter demanded, finally grabbing his arm and spinning him around. "Just what was that with Connor back there?"
"I'll tell you on the way to the hospital," Stephen said tersely, yanking the door open and getting in. He barely waited for the other two to get in before he started it up and got on the road.
"Well?" Abby asked.
He sighed. "Connor was the victim of some very strange experiments when he was fifteen," Stephen told them. He really wasn't sure how they were going to take his revelations, so he was starting slowly. "I was never quite certain, and Connor didn't go into overmuch detail about it, but it seemed to be an attempt to create a sort of berserker super-soldier."
"Connor?" Cutter and Abby chorused. Abby was baffled, but Cutter's voice was derisive. "Who would try to turn Connor into a soldier?"
"The only reason she didn't succeed, Nick, is because Connor's brilliant and had read and watched too much science fiction," Stephen told him. "I can only guess that half the reason he's the mess he is, is because he's been self-medicating to control himself." A thought occurred to him, "Abby, can you look through his things at home? He'll have to have kept some notes somewhere in hard copy. Just in case."
"Sure," Abby said, taken aback.
There was a long period of silence. Then just as Nick was about to ask something, Stephen dreaded having to go through more questions since he'd been down that route twenty-five years before and hadn't much liked it the first time, they thankfully got to the hospital. Connor was already in surgery, and Stephen was cautioning them to leave Connor restrained and put on more anaesthetic than would be healthy in a normal human. He lied through his teeth about Connor being the victim of experimental drugging that would counter the most commonly used anaesthetics, warning them that Connor would be violent if he awoke in a strange place with doctors experimenting on him.
Then he went to wait outside the operating room and pace anxiously. He had to be there every step and he had to make sure they let him wait with Connor.
Clearly finally sick of waiting, Nick grabbed his arm, manhandling him into a chair. "You're going to explain, Stephen, and I expect it to be a complete explanation," he said. "You're on very thin ice with me. What happened to Connor and why the hell did he tell you about it?"
"He never told me," Stephen said, taking a deep breath and resolving himself to reliving those terrifying days. "He didn't have to, because I was there."
Cutter snorted, "You'd barely started your master's under Helen, Stephen," he said. "When the hell did this happen in between all that?"
"Anything's possible with time travel, Nick," Stephen said.
Abby gasped. "You went through an anomaly? When was this?"
"1980."
The pair froze. "But . . ." Nick frowned. "Why didn't you . . . I mean, when Connor brought the article with him you didn't seem to think it any more real than I did."
A little bitter, now that he knew everything was true, everything that he'd made himself believe was a lie, Stephen ran his hands through his hair. "I was five years old and bloody scared when I finally got home. It took a lot of child psychologists and a year of homeschooling, but I 'got over' the nightmare and sleepwalking incident."
"Oh, Stephen," Abby said, sympathy all over her face.
He looked at Nick earnestly. "It's part of why I hate that we hide the anomalies," he explained. "I spent so much time being told I was a liar, and then so much more time dealing with it and having no way to explain anything . . ." he trailed off. "But it doesn't excuse my believing Helen over you, Nick. I am sorry for that."
Cutter didn't say anything, but the harsh lines his face had taken softened a little. "So, what happened then? You wandered through one?"
"I was taken," he clarified. "I didn't even truly know about the anomalies until I was on my way home. I went to bed and woke up being hauled along like a bag of potatoes by some man in black, armed to the teeth." He looked at the other two. "You'll have to pardon any melodrama. I was only five, so some of my impressions may be a bit . . . er . . ."
His best friend's mouth quirked into a small grin for a moment, and Abby rolled her eyes. "So, then what?"
"I was being hauled through a Triassic forest, though I didn't know it at the time," Stephen said. "God, that was terrifying when we got attacked by a pack of coelophyses." He shook off the memory of darting bodies and snapping teeth. He'd been hard-pressed to hide his blind terror of the raptors in the mall. Hell, he'd had a bad time of it when he'd watched Jurassic Park the first time he saw it in a cinema. It really was too close to memory for him. He didn't even like watching large birds like ostriches.
"My God," Nick said, despite himself.
Abby was silent, but listening raptly.
"There was a lot of shooting and not long after I was dragged into a compound and taken to a block of what seemed like holding cells or prison cells." Stephen was half lost in the memory of the dark halls and and the grim line of cells, each with its pair of occupants. "They were all holding children. One teenager and one young child per cell. In pairs, all of them. I was tossed into the last one, the only one which only had a teenager alone in it."
"Connor?" Abby asked.
Stephen nodded. "I remember, they just heaved me in, and he flung himself forward to break my fall." He shook his head. "Some of the other children weren't as lucky. A lot of them had sprains and bumps, I remember Hester had a broken wrist from where she hit the floor."
"Hester?" Nick asked with a frown.
"They didn't stop us from talking to the others, and Connor talked a lot," he said with a smile.
Chuckling, Abby said, "That doesn't surprise me."
"He wasn't being friendly, Abby," Stephen said, "Or at least, so he said. He'd claimed he was trying to pick out some pattern to what was being done and why we were there. And why us and not other children and teens." It was harder now to tell this story than when he'd been a child. Back then he'd been desperately trying to convince people of the truth. Now, he just didn't want to relive it all if he could help it. "I was the last brought in. The teens had been there longer. Connor said some sort of experiments had been performed on them."
"What's that on your arm?"
"Hmm?" Connor turned to look at Stevie. "What're you . . . oh, this?" he asked, pointing to the bruises and small spots, the track marks. "They're doing things to us," he said darkly. "I don't know what, but . . . have your mum and dad ever taken you to the doctor for a needle? Something to keep you from getting, say, the measles?"
"I didn't like it," he said with a pout. He hadn't either. A lollipop did not make up for having a great big piece of pointy metal poked into your arm.
Connor smiled. It was a nice smile and it made Stevie feel better when he smiled. If he was smiling, things couldn't be all awful, could they? "No one likes it," he agreed. "But I think they're using their needles to put bad stuff in, not good."
Eyes wide, Stevie said, "But why?"
"I don't know," said his new friend. "That's why I'm worried."
"I remember being terrified every time they took him away, wondering if something bad would happen to either of us during the separation," he said, feeling those chills again as if it were the first time. "And when they started testing whatever it was they'd done to him, to all of them . . ."
Nick had dropped even the faintest pretense of hurt feelings. "What did they do?" he demanded. In his voice was outrage. What did they do to my student? How badly was Connor hurt? Underneath that were questions Stephen hadn't been sure he'd hear again. What did they do to you, Stephen? Why are you still so frightened after all these years?
"Locked them in rooms with a pack of alpha predators," Stephen said. "Rather like what just happened earlier." He closed his eyes on remembered grief and fury when some of the cells were emptied. "Some of the teenagers didn't come back from it, and the children in the cells with them . . ." he took a shaky breath, Connor's rage, the first time he'd seen it, roaring in his ears as he finished, "We never knew what happened, just that they were taken away." Then he corrected himself. "I never knew, but the treatments Connor underwent improved his senses, his sense of smell, taste, eyesight, hearing. I'm fairly certain he heard what happened, and I'm also certain that he protected me from knowing because it was that horrible."
"Oh, no," Abby moaned, her hands over her mouth, eyes filled with tears as she imagined the scene.
Nick was frowning. "How could all those children go missing at once, though?" he asked. "Someone would have noticed that many kidnappings."
"Not if they weren't all from the same time," Stephen pointed out. "Hester I know was taken from America in the midst of the Civil War there, and Jim was living in Ireland in the 60s when he was taken. Don't forget also, I'm older than Connor, but he was fifteen and I was five in that place."
"Jim?" Abby asked. "Another one of the kids there?"
Stephen nodded. "Ursula and George, Jim and Bernie, Violet and Bess, Jed and Peter, Quinn and Fatima, Hester and Wendy . . ." he sighed. "It's been so long, I can't remember all the names. Connor might recall more."
"If he ever gets back to normal," Nick said darkly.
That was one thing Stephen was confident of, though. "He will. He has before and he can again."
Then the doctor came out, informing them that Connor had come through the surgery repairing all the damage from the bullets, and that he was being taken to a private room. Stephen followed, the doctor ignoring all his demands regarding Connor's room, until Connor, waking up now that the constant stream of drugs into his system was gone, nearly flew off the trolley, throwing the nurses and porters out of the way.
"Connor!" Stephen shouted, racing after him, risking a broken ankle vaulting over the stair banister to get in front of him.
Connor couldn't stop in time not to bowl Stephen over, but he was fast enough to catch Stephen before he hit the ground and set him gently on his feet. His head whipped around in confusion, no doubt the sterile scent of the hospital setting off alarms in his head that he wasn't safe, but the fact that Stephen was there and not stressed about their surroundings would have conflicted with that. "It's okay, Connor," he said, trying to sound soothing.
"What the hell is wrong with him?" squawked the doctor, who had come running up after them.
Stephen immediately got between the doctor and Connor, cutting off the no-doubt inevitable aggressive move, and found Connor yanking him back. While it was nice to know the Connor he'd got to know in the compound was still there, now that the worst of the crisis was over, it was going to get a little galling being protected by someone eight years his junior. He tamped down a part of him that thought it was nice that someone didn't just expect him to fearlessly nearly kill himself to protect others. "Now will you arrange somewhere for him to be that he's less likely to cause damage from?"
Lester's voice issued from behind them. "He will if he doesn't want to deal with the repercussions of failing to properly treat an agent of the Home Office injured in the commission of his duties."
It still took a good half hour to ease Connor through the hospital and into a padded room. Stephen point blank refused to leave him alone. "He won't hurt me," he assured the others, "And he may be worried if I'm not there." He sent Abby off, telling her to do what she could to find Connor's notes and get them to the scientists at the ARC so that they could come up with some sort of treatment for him, then ducked into the room where Connor had been getting increasingly agitated.
For a while Connor paced around like the caged animal he was, poking at the bandaging on his body and growling. Eventually the long day took a toll on him and he joined Stephen, who hadn't even noticed until then that he'd taken up the same corner that he'd considered 'his' back when he and Connor were locked up together. With a sort of nod of satisfaction, he lay on his side, facing the door and leaning on Stephen's legs as if to reassure himself his packmate was still there. Stephen had had an equally long day and let it all catch up to him, drifting to sleep with the reassuring knowlege that Connor was there and would never let anything happen to either of them.
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Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything anyone recognises and I'm not making any money from it.
Rating: PG, maybe PG-13
Summary: When time travel's involved, you never know when you'll meet up with old friends.
Notes: So, I'm warning you all now of two things. This is not a slashfic. It's not going to have much, if any, romance in it, definitely no smut. Second, I will be reusing some concepts from this in another fic when I'm done with this one, and it'll be weirdly derivative. Anyhoodle, this is just so everyone knows now.
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Stephen Hart had a more or less normal childhood as these things are reckoned. Two parents, reasonably affectionate, not overly affluent, but not poor either. Both fairly well-educated, but neither one an intellectual. He played football and rugby, more football than rugby, grumbled through his dad's cricket, put up with being dragged to art museums and plays and things by both parents and went through the normal childhood stages of interest in cars and lorries, cartoon superheroes, obsessive sporting collections of football jerseys and the like and some stupid extreme sport junkets. He was good in school, though hardly one of the swots at the top of the class, was never bullied because he was too popular and good looking to stand for it and was usually well-liked by his peers and teachers.
There was one thing that made him a little odd, though. And it could be traced back to a single childhood event. It always left his parents baffled how one incident of a really weird dream, sleepwalking into a mud puddle in some clothes they simply could not recall getting for him in the dead of night, had wrought such a change in little Stevie Hart.
He'd woken them at three in the morning, screaming the house down from outside, claiming he'd been kidnapped by someone, taken from the house, held captive for days and had only just returned. The story, while imaginitive, was ludicrous. But it had a tremendous impact on the young Hart. For nearly a year, the five-year-old had insisted that the whole story was real in the face of his deeply worried parents, child psychologists and educators. They'd pulled him out of school right quick when the other parents got upset with his cockamamie stories, arranging for homeschooling until the issue was resolved.
Stephen did eventually give in. But the whole strange episode created an obsession for him, with animals, hunting, tracking and guns that left his family (generally quite pacifist) baffled. They were proud of his accomplishments, the shooting titles, the skills that he showed off to younger cousins in following foxes through the brush back to dens and all the time he spent getting his degrees at uni in biology and chemistry.
He'd mostly forgotten about it, letting that part of his childhood go by the wayside, because the whole notion of what he'd believed at age five was too ridiculous for words, really. But he nearly had a heart attack when, in his position as Nick Cutter's assistant, he was delegated the task of teaching an eager class of post-graduate students.
It was a perfectly ordinary day, he was shuffling the papers he had lined up for the lecture in front of him when he saw him. A young man that looked like a ten-years-older version of the imaginary teenager who'd been his idol when he was five. The face was the same, and there was something in the way he moved that put him in mind of that boy as well. Stephen was nearly on his way over to ask, when the student managed to fall all over his own feet, sending papers and books and bag and laptop spinning in every direction.
Obviously it wasn't him. His imaginary hero remained imaginary.
As ever, he put the whole thing from his mind and concentrated on the present. That didn't help him, because he'd studiously avoided contact with the student in question out of fear he'd say something idiotic, when he came bumbling up to them, declaring his name to be Connor Temple.
"Hey, there. What's your name?"
"Stephen. But my mum and dad call me Stevie."
"Stevie or Stephen? Which do you prefer?"
"Stevie. What about you? Who're you?"
"I'm Connor."
He just couldn't help himself. He'd let slip about Helen's disappearance, and the sympathetic look was the exact one he'd remembered. But this was stupid. And it only felt increasingly idiotic as the day went on and this Connor faffed about, making more noise than anything should be able to make just walking, doing stupid things and generally annoying everyone about.
"It’s a gorgonopsid. It’s a compact killing machine, and it’s got incredible power. Stephen, if it is still out there, then you have to find it. Fast." There it was again. Serious, sharp, clearheaded and brilliant. He'd seen that look before.
"I need you to watch, Stevie. There isn't much time, and I need to know if anything changes. Climb the tree, and if you see anything weird in there, anything at all, blow the whistle. More important, if you think something bad's about to happen to you, use it. I'll come."
It made him ask, taking him seriously, "What about you?"
No. It wasn't him. "You, mighty hunter. Me, I’m more logistics and, you know, backup." The cheesy smile and back pat made him grind his teeth.
The whole back and forth, yes and no, it hurt oddly. As if he were to see his father turn into a stranger. Not to mention, the Connor, the one from his childhood hallucination, was his protector, the adult who'd kept him safe from the monsters as a child. He'd been a bit of a talisman when he was scared of the dark. Connor wouldn't have been scared, and would protect him if something horrible happened.
But this Connor was eight years younger than him, was clumsy and foolish and could never have done for little Stevie what the other Connor had. No, it was his imagination run wild.
He just kept getting confused, though. Because the glowing portal was the one he recalled going home through, which lent credence to his year of certainty that he had been taken. Connor's face and voice, so familiar, began to haunt him. And with everything, he'd see these small moments where he was certain flashes of that boy he'd wanted to be growing up would appear.
Driving off a mosasaur with nothing more than a paddle.
Fearless as he stood between gun sights and his mad, dying friend.
An awareness of the attacking future predators that seemed to almost presage the dogs and the sound of the oscilloscope.
Outrunning a raptor, diving under the metal barrier at the last second.
Genius with technology that allowed improvisation and instant adaptation.
The hallmarks he'd associated with his Connor, bravery, physical skill, brilliance, they were all there.
Intermittently.
Because every time he was sure, every time he thought he'd approach and ask, he'd be filled with doubt all over again.
Running across a golf course, accompanied by a lizard, chased by a pteradon.
Mistaking a man in a mascot suit for a real cat.
Every bit of his silliness about Abby, Nick, himself and Jenny.
They couldn't be him. They weren't Connor. But the flashes of what he once was made Stephen let him in closer. Let him cling, foolishly. Because some childish part of him saw Connor's face and felt safe again in ways he hadn't since he was five and terrified, alone in his bedroom, certain they'd come for him again. And maybe, just maybe, this Connor was his Claudia Brown. Lost in time, due to time and paradox, someone he'd never get back again, left with only the pale imitation.
After the initial confusion with Nick over the imaginary woman, he'd let Nick's obsession go, because he was faced with the same every time he spoke to the endearingly smiling and clumsy young man in the waistcoat and fedora.
He never told anyone, though. Partly from habit and partly from a certainty they'd think he was mad, and partly out of fear they'd all believe him. Because if it was true, what did that mean for who and what he was, and what Connor was to him?
He'd been distracted from his issues with Connor when Helen came back again, worming her way into his life. He thought he'd seen Connor looking at him reproachfully the first night he'd let her into his flat and his bed again, but that had to have been his imagination, because if the Connor he worked with were that Connor, he'd have said something, wouldn't he? But then again, Helen had seemed to bring out something overtly and madly klutzy in Connor. If he didn't know better (did he or didn't he, though? He didn't know) he'd have thought Connor was hiding behind his nerd persona around her for some reason.
None of it mattered now.
He was going to die, torn apart by the animals his Connor had saved him from, had showed off to him from the safety of treetops and piqued his interest in them as a child. It almost felt appropriate. Connor had risked everything to do what he'd done, for Stephen and the other children there, and now Stephen had thrown everything away for Helen. He'd earned this.
Only one thing left to do. "Tell Abby and Connor . . ."
"One last thing, Stevie."
"Yeah, Connor?"
A cheeky grin that made him feel better about walking through the glow all by himself. "Stay out of trouble."
". . . to stay out of trouble." He hoped Connor would get the message.
He backed away from the door, locking his eyes with Nick's and waiting for the end. But it didn't come, not right away. Because the alpha predators wouldn't share with each other. Not when there was only him there. They fought, and Stephen ducked and wove, because he didn't want to die, he'd put it off as long as he could, and he didn't want to do that to Nick, either. It felt like an eternity until he was faced with fewer predators, but they seemed to have momentarily paused in battling each other.
Then a door to the side cracked open and Connor came through. The animals came on point, but Connor, no longer wearing shoes or socks, a scarf now tightly wrapped around one forearm dropped into a crouch, and told Stephen sharply, "When you can, get behind me. And when this is done . . ."
". . . If I'm not . . . me . . ."
He was creeping forward, producing pills from a pocket, which he dry-swallowed, ". . . If I'm not coherent . . ."
". . . Do whatever you have to do . . ."
". . . To stop me." Then he dove at the raptor, teeth bared, and Stephen knew, it was the same Connor.
He hurried for the door, giving an experimental yank, but Connor had locked them both in, making the same sort of gambit he had years before. All or nothing. And Connor was talking, blood that wasn't his already staining his face and clothes, "I really hadn't expected to have to play Roman Circus again," he nearly growled, ricocheting off the walls like the future predators. Five-year-old Stevie was crawling his way out of thirty-two-year-old Stephen's brain and cheering on his hero.
Then the SFs burst in, armed to the teeth, their automatic weapons dealing with the last of the creatures, and the only creature left was Connor, who looked feral, and reacted to the sight of the guns with widened eyes and a furious launch of himself at the soldiers. Better trained than the heavyset clones of the compound, they got out of the way, jockeying for a position to shoot Connor from.
"No!" Stephen hurled himself in front of Connor. "Don't! Put the guns down." His heart was pounding as he hoped Connor wasn't too far gone, wouldn't misread the situation in his unthinking and instinctive state. They didn't, and Stephen found himself suddenly assaulted by Connor.
"Stephen!" he heard Cutter shout. Heard the orders to do what they had to in order to save Stephen.
He wrenched free and scrambled back. Connor's eyes weren't showing anything but deadly intent, only a recognition that adult males like Stephen had done this to him, unable to differentiate between people, just adults and children. He hurled himself forward, as fast as any of the future predators could move, too fast for a normal person to take aim, Stephen closed his eyes, waiting for the impact . . . which never came.
Connor didn't show any sign of human intellect, but he did show recognition. His nostrils flared as he stood, frozen inches from Stephen. "That's right, Connor," he murmured. "You remember me? Stevie Hart?"
Unfortunately, the moment was broken by Jenny, who sometimes seemed to have the survival instincts of a lemming, squawking, "What?"
Connor whirled, his whole being now focussed on protecting the person he recognised as his charge from a decade before. But whereas lost in a prehistoric forest, running from a mad scientist's lair, a feral semi-human guard dog was a useful thing, faced with otherwise normally friendly soldiers and teammates, those instincts pressing Connor to defend his packmate at all costs were a liability. He was crossing the space, and Stephen was desperately trying to reach after him, to stop him, Jenny's hands lifted the gun she still carried, the SFs followed suit, smarter and faster than the ones from before . . .
Connor went down in a hail of bullets.
"No, no, no, no, no," Stephen moaned, running to Connor's side. "Get a medic and tell them to put restraints on him," he snapped. "Hurry!" He knelt next to Connor, who was barely conscious, but still lost to any sort of human interaction. He stroked the hair on the younger man's head, the way he'd once done when he was five and Connor fifteen, the older boy still feral and mad, but protective of Stevie to the detriment of anything else. "It's okay, Connor. I'll make sure of it."
His friend, that childhood idol he'd only just found again, whined and struggled as Abby, Cutter and Jenny closed in. "Back off," Stephen told them. "It'll be bad enough when the medics get here. He won't remember you. Not right now."
"But he remembers you?" Nick asked, volumes of bafflement in his voice.
And he was five again, faced with doubting grown-ups who couldn't believe a true story if it bit them on the nose, knowing that there was one person he'd trust without reservation, no matter how dangerous he was, no matter what was wrong with him, and that he wanted to make his hero proud. "Of course he does," Stephen said, blinking away tears. "He always did."
****************************
Unsurprisingly, when the medics came and put Connor onto the trolley, he began to panic. He was clearly pushing through the pain, and Stephen cursed, then ignored everyone's protests to hop on with him, wishing, for the first time in his life, that he was a smaller person, physically. It did the trick, Connor recognising that Stephen wasn't leaving him to vultures, soothed by the presence of someone he'd identified as a packmate, he let the medics start to treat him and strap him down.
He didn't get off the trolley until they'd sedated Connor and he'd fallen asleep. Then, ignoring Jenny, who was demanding answers, he headed straight for the car, Cutter and Abby in his wake.
"Stephen," Cutter demanded, finally grabbing his arm and spinning him around. "Just what was that with Connor back there?"
"I'll tell you on the way to the hospital," Stephen said tersely, yanking the door open and getting in. He barely waited for the other two to get in before he started it up and got on the road.
"Well?" Abby asked.
He sighed. "Connor was the victim of some very strange experiments when he was fifteen," Stephen told them. He really wasn't sure how they were going to take his revelations, so he was starting slowly. "I was never quite certain, and Connor didn't go into overmuch detail about it, but it seemed to be an attempt to create a sort of berserker super-soldier."
"Connor?" Cutter and Abby chorused. Abby was baffled, but Cutter's voice was derisive. "Who would try to turn Connor into a soldier?"
"The only reason she didn't succeed, Nick, is because Connor's brilliant and had read and watched too much science fiction," Stephen told him. "I can only guess that half the reason he's the mess he is, is because he's been self-medicating to control himself." A thought occurred to him, "Abby, can you look through his things at home? He'll have to have kept some notes somewhere in hard copy. Just in case."
"Sure," Abby said, taken aback.
There was a long period of silence. Then just as Nick was about to ask something, Stephen dreaded having to go through more questions since he'd been down that route twenty-five years before and hadn't much liked it the first time, they thankfully got to the hospital. Connor was already in surgery, and Stephen was cautioning them to leave Connor restrained and put on more anaesthetic than would be healthy in a normal human. He lied through his teeth about Connor being the victim of experimental drugging that would counter the most commonly used anaesthetics, warning them that Connor would be violent if he awoke in a strange place with doctors experimenting on him.
Then he went to wait outside the operating room and pace anxiously. He had to be there every step and he had to make sure they let him wait with Connor.
Clearly finally sick of waiting, Nick grabbed his arm, manhandling him into a chair. "You're going to explain, Stephen, and I expect it to be a complete explanation," he said. "You're on very thin ice with me. What happened to Connor and why the hell did he tell you about it?"
"He never told me," Stephen said, taking a deep breath and resolving himself to reliving those terrifying days. "He didn't have to, because I was there."
Cutter snorted, "You'd barely started your master's under Helen, Stephen," he said. "When the hell did this happen in between all that?"
"Anything's possible with time travel, Nick," Stephen said.
Abby gasped. "You went through an anomaly? When was this?"
"1980."
The pair froze. "But . . ." Nick frowned. "Why didn't you . . . I mean, when Connor brought the article with him you didn't seem to think it any more real than I did."
A little bitter, now that he knew everything was true, everything that he'd made himself believe was a lie, Stephen ran his hands through his hair. "I was five years old and bloody scared when I finally got home. It took a lot of child psychologists and a year of homeschooling, but I 'got over' the nightmare and sleepwalking incident."
"Oh, Stephen," Abby said, sympathy all over her face.
He looked at Nick earnestly. "It's part of why I hate that we hide the anomalies," he explained. "I spent so much time being told I was a liar, and then so much more time dealing with it and having no way to explain anything . . ." he trailed off. "But it doesn't excuse my believing Helen over you, Nick. I am sorry for that."
Cutter didn't say anything, but the harsh lines his face had taken softened a little. "So, what happened then? You wandered through one?"
"I was taken," he clarified. "I didn't even truly know about the anomalies until I was on my way home. I went to bed and woke up being hauled along like a bag of potatoes by some man in black, armed to the teeth." He looked at the other two. "You'll have to pardon any melodrama. I was only five, so some of my impressions may be a bit . . . er . . ."
His best friend's mouth quirked into a small grin for a moment, and Abby rolled her eyes. "So, then what?"
"I was being hauled through a Triassic forest, though I didn't know it at the time," Stephen said. "God, that was terrifying when we got attacked by a pack of coelophyses." He shook off the memory of darting bodies and snapping teeth. He'd been hard-pressed to hide his blind terror of the raptors in the mall. Hell, he'd had a bad time of it when he'd watched Jurassic Park the first time he saw it in a cinema. It really was too close to memory for him. He didn't even like watching large birds like ostriches.
"My God," Nick said, despite himself.
Abby was silent, but listening raptly.
"There was a lot of shooting and not long after I was dragged into a compound and taken to a block of what seemed like holding cells or prison cells." Stephen was half lost in the memory of the dark halls and and the grim line of cells, each with its pair of occupants. "They were all holding children. One teenager and one young child per cell. In pairs, all of them. I was tossed into the last one, the only one which only had a teenager alone in it."
"Connor?" Abby asked.
Stephen nodded. "I remember, they just heaved me in, and he flung himself forward to break my fall." He shook his head. "Some of the other children weren't as lucky. A lot of them had sprains and bumps, I remember Hester had a broken wrist from where she hit the floor."
"Hester?" Nick asked with a frown.
"They didn't stop us from talking to the others, and Connor talked a lot," he said with a smile.
Chuckling, Abby said, "That doesn't surprise me."
"He wasn't being friendly, Abby," Stephen said, "Or at least, so he said. He'd claimed he was trying to pick out some pattern to what was being done and why we were there. And why us and not other children and teens." It was harder now to tell this story than when he'd been a child. Back then he'd been desperately trying to convince people of the truth. Now, he just didn't want to relive it all if he could help it. "I was the last brought in. The teens had been there longer. Connor said some sort of experiments had been performed on them."
"What's that on your arm?"
"Hmm?" Connor turned to look at Stevie. "What're you . . . oh, this?" he asked, pointing to the bruises and small spots, the track marks. "They're doing things to us," he said darkly. "I don't know what, but . . . have your mum and dad ever taken you to the doctor for a needle? Something to keep you from getting, say, the measles?"
"I didn't like it," he said with a pout. He hadn't either. A lollipop did not make up for having a great big piece of pointy metal poked into your arm.
Connor smiled. It was a nice smile and it made Stevie feel better when he smiled. If he was smiling, things couldn't be all awful, could they? "No one likes it," he agreed. "But I think they're using their needles to put bad stuff in, not good."
Eyes wide, Stevie said, "But why?"
"I don't know," said his new friend. "That's why I'm worried."
"I remember being terrified every time they took him away, wondering if something bad would happen to either of us during the separation," he said, feeling those chills again as if it were the first time. "And when they started testing whatever it was they'd done to him, to all of them . . ."
Nick had dropped even the faintest pretense of hurt feelings. "What did they do?" he demanded. In his voice was outrage. What did they do to my student? How badly was Connor hurt? Underneath that were questions Stephen hadn't been sure he'd hear again. What did they do to you, Stephen? Why are you still so frightened after all these years?
"Locked them in rooms with a pack of alpha predators," Stephen said. "Rather like what just happened earlier." He closed his eyes on remembered grief and fury when some of the cells were emptied. "Some of the teenagers didn't come back from it, and the children in the cells with them . . ." he took a shaky breath, Connor's rage, the first time he'd seen it, roaring in his ears as he finished, "We never knew what happened, just that they were taken away." Then he corrected himself. "I never knew, but the treatments Connor underwent improved his senses, his sense of smell, taste, eyesight, hearing. I'm fairly certain he heard what happened, and I'm also certain that he protected me from knowing because it was that horrible."
"Oh, no," Abby moaned, her hands over her mouth, eyes filled with tears as she imagined the scene.
Nick was frowning. "How could all those children go missing at once, though?" he asked. "Someone would have noticed that many kidnappings."
"Not if they weren't all from the same time," Stephen pointed out. "Hester I know was taken from America in the midst of the Civil War there, and Jim was living in Ireland in the 60s when he was taken. Don't forget also, I'm older than Connor, but he was fifteen and I was five in that place."
"Jim?" Abby asked. "Another one of the kids there?"
Stephen nodded. "Ursula and George, Jim and Bernie, Violet and Bess, Jed and Peter, Quinn and Fatima, Hester and Wendy . . ." he sighed. "It's been so long, I can't remember all the names. Connor might recall more."
"If he ever gets back to normal," Nick said darkly.
That was one thing Stephen was confident of, though. "He will. He has before and he can again."
Then the doctor came out, informing them that Connor had come through the surgery repairing all the damage from the bullets, and that he was being taken to a private room. Stephen followed, the doctor ignoring all his demands regarding Connor's room, until Connor, waking up now that the constant stream of drugs into his system was gone, nearly flew off the trolley, throwing the nurses and porters out of the way.
"Connor!" Stephen shouted, racing after him, risking a broken ankle vaulting over the stair banister to get in front of him.
Connor couldn't stop in time not to bowl Stephen over, but he was fast enough to catch Stephen before he hit the ground and set him gently on his feet. His head whipped around in confusion, no doubt the sterile scent of the hospital setting off alarms in his head that he wasn't safe, but the fact that Stephen was there and not stressed about their surroundings would have conflicted with that. "It's okay, Connor," he said, trying to sound soothing.
"What the hell is wrong with him?" squawked the doctor, who had come running up after them.
Stephen immediately got between the doctor and Connor, cutting off the no-doubt inevitable aggressive move, and found Connor yanking him back. While it was nice to know the Connor he'd got to know in the compound was still there, now that the worst of the crisis was over, it was going to get a little galling being protected by someone eight years his junior. He tamped down a part of him that thought it was nice that someone didn't just expect him to fearlessly nearly kill himself to protect others. "Now will you arrange somewhere for him to be that he's less likely to cause damage from?"
Lester's voice issued from behind them. "He will if he doesn't want to deal with the repercussions of failing to properly treat an agent of the Home Office injured in the commission of his duties."
It still took a good half hour to ease Connor through the hospital and into a padded room. Stephen point blank refused to leave him alone. "He won't hurt me," he assured the others, "And he may be worried if I'm not there." He sent Abby off, telling her to do what she could to find Connor's notes and get them to the scientists at the ARC so that they could come up with some sort of treatment for him, then ducked into the room where Connor had been getting increasingly agitated.
For a while Connor paced around like the caged animal he was, poking at the bandaging on his body and growling. Eventually the long day took a toll on him and he joined Stephen, who hadn't even noticed until then that he'd taken up the same corner that he'd considered 'his' back when he and Connor were locked up together. With a sort of nod of satisfaction, he lay on his side, facing the door and leaning on Stephen's legs as if to reassure himself his packmate was still there. Stephen had had an equally long day and let it all catch up to him, drifting to sleep with the reassuring knowlege that Connor was there and would never let anything happen to either of them.
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