Primeval Fic: In Name Only 8/9
Title: In Name Only
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything herein and no one's paying me to do it.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Children change almost everything.
AN: I was going to stop with this one, then I remembered all the plot threads I'd left hanging. So, the neverending story continues.
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"Jake, what are you doing?" Lettie asked as she looked in on Lynn and her erstwhile second son, who were deeply involved in a discussion about something to do with iguanas, ribbon, rings and maiasaurs.
He looked up at her, about to speak, when Lynn answered. "We're figuring out how Dad's going to propose to Abby. I keep telling him he's going to have to train Ernie to come to his treats if he wants to use him to deliver the ring to Abby."
"Use . . . Ernie?"
A sheepish look on his face, Connor said, "Erm . . . well, Abby wants me to propose when it's clear I'm not just doing it because I'm happy we're not dead, so I figured I'd best do some extra-romantic thing that requires a lot of planning and all."
"And this requires . . . who's Ernie?" Then Lettie thought about it. "What's Ernie?"
"Abby's iguana," Lynn told her. "We thought about using Rex, but he's as likely as not to lose the ring. Ernie'll just walk over."
Lettie stared. "You're having an iguana deliver the engagement ring? Because it's romantic?"
"Well, Abby says she's a lizard girl," Connor said defensively.
Dropping her head to her hands, Lettie said, "Jake . . ."
"It has to be . . . Abby, yeah?" he said. "I mean, it's got to be like her, right?"
"Why don't you just dress up like a lizard then," Lettie said.
He shook his head. "I thought about it, but when she heard that story about Keith and the chicken suit she told me outright I shouldn't, and . . ." he took in the look on her face. "Oh. You were being sarcastic."
"You're normally better at catching that," she said dryly. "Is there something wrong with flowers and a walk on the beach?"
Lynn gave her a disdainful look. "We're in England," she said pointedly. "It'll rain if he tries that."
"Since when are you victim to stereotypes propogated by everyone else about the UK?" Lettie asked.
There was a pause as the nine-year-old processed that sentence, then said, "So, you're saying it won't rain?"
"Taking her to where you met?" Lettie offered.
He shook his head. "That's under constant military surveillance since an anomaly's opened there more than once, and always to the same era. Anyhow, I don't really want to wander around the Forest of Dean for that long."
"First date?"
"Interrupted by that marsupial lion."
"First kiss?"
"Lynn interrupted and told us all about the fact that she had a five-pound bet on with Danny about it."
"Well, I thought he should make a turkey and stick it inside with the stuffing, then she'd find it there and he could tell her that since dinosaurs brought them together, he was using a dinosaur to bring them togetherer."
That prompted a baffled stare. Then, "Togetherer? Turkey?"
"Turkeys are some of the closest birds, anatomically, to dinosaurs," Connor said tiredly. "So, Lynn's trying to suggest I do the closest thing to cooking a velociraptor and sticking a ring in it."
Lettie shook her head and sighed. "That still doesn't answer togetherer."
"Well, they're already together," Lynn said. "So, if they get married, they're not just getting together, they're getting more together. Together-er."
"You are a terrible influence," she informed Connor.
"What's he done now?" Abby asked as she came in. She'd been doing her yoga in Lettie's back yard, since they were staying over for the weekend, which was why Lynn and Connor had taken the chance to plot in her absence.
"I am fully aware that you would never leave Lynn with the impression that it's okay to say, 'togetherer'," Lettie informed her.
Abby shot them both a speculative look. "Lynn, are you trying to get us married off again?"
"And people say men are afraid of commitment," Connor muttered as he left the three women in his life to hide from the conversation's sudden turn to a lengthy discussion of some television show about fashion designers and their competition to make wedding dresses. Once upstairs, he pulled the small box out of his pocket that held the ring he was hoping to propose to Abby with. A year's worth of backpay had given him enough to afford a custom design, and he'd spent a long time getting it right with the jeweller. The ring itself was designed to look like a lizard, but the metal was steel, chosen because it didn't tarnish and was hard-wearing. There were two tiny yellow sapphires winking from the eyes, and the tail and forefeet came together to hold a diamond.
He'd waited three days after returning and moving back in with Abby and Lynn, planned to propose, had managed to get Lettie to watch Lynn for the evening and let him and Abby go out to dinner. He'd been about to ask again, this time with no post-drama adrenaline, when she said, "I'm really glad you're not proposing now, Conn."
"How come?" he'd asked.
She'd smiled at him and said, "Because this soon after I said no, it would have been really obvious you were just waiting for there to be no, 'thank God we're alive' moment associated with it."
After he'd been called in from the field to get Burton out of his self-made death trap where he was slowly suffocating to death, Connor had internally cursed, pushing back his intended proposal date. Abby had been too furious after Burton's attempts to get the menagerie animals put down for Connor to try his luck, the mess with the idiots in that stupid town backwoods of nowhere and their illegal petrol operation had pushed things back again. He was now trying to plan something elaborate enough that Abby couldn't say he was doing it because of adrenaline or something, but just simple enough that he could pull it off at a moment's notice.
It was not easy.
But with everything going on, he'd begun to doubt that Abby wanted to get married at all, and when he was feeling particularly awful, he wondered if she wanted to stay with him full stop, and was just sticking around for Lynn.
Danny was almost recovered from his broken limbs, but he hadn't checked out yet for going into the field. So the team dispatched to the grand old estate to look for the anomaly in its basement was Abby, Connor, Stephen and Matt. Stephen and Connor had, in the year they were gone, developed a sort of bait and draw technique, both of them pretending they weren't paying attention in order to trick predators into falling over cliffs and running into things. When it came down to it, Stephen didn't know the ins and outs of animal behaviour generally, but he knew what to do with animals that were tracking him.
Senses heightened by his time in the past, he and Stephen both deliberately each presented their backs to one of the two areas the animal was most likely to come from, then covered for each other's deliberate blind spot. Connor was filling the silence with empty chatter when he heard movement behind him and saw Stephen's EMD come up. He whirled around, his shot hitting the wolflike creature only a moment after Stephen's did.
"Hyaenodon, male," Abby said.
Connor shrugged at Stephen when the man shot him a look. "What? I do dinosaurs, not ancient mammals."
They split into pairs, Abby going with Matt, shooting Connor a mildly irritated look as she went, Stephen going with Connor. "How are things with Abby?" Stephen asked.
He made a face. "I think I'm going to have to make a huge production out of proposing so she'll know I really mean it," Connor said with a sigh. "I've got the ring and all, I just don't know what to do. Lynn thinks I should tie the ring onto a ribbon around the iguana's neck and get him to walk up to Abby to musical fanfare."
"Can you train a lizard?" Stephen asked, doubtfully.
Connor shrugged, "Who knows? I think Lynn's going to try, though." Then he asked, "So, how are things going with Sarah?"
"Well, her mother is unhappy because I'm not a nice Muslim lad, and her dad's less than pleased that I'm from," Stephen put on a terrible accent that sounded like a vague collision of cockney with Welsh that left Connor wondering what it was supposed to be, "A bleedin', snippy, posh, twit who wouldn't know an honest day's labour." Stephen shook his head. "Or something like that. Apparently it's fine to speak like an educated person if you're his wife or daughter, but not me."
That was sort of funny, really. "So, her Dad's what? Some regular bloke who switched over from the C of E to Islam?"
"Pretty much," Stephen said. "Of course, I expect my parents will be less than thrilled I'm engaged to one of the 'invading hordes'."
"Don't like immigrants much?" Connor asked, wincing. "The pair of you do seem stuck on both ends."
"I almost envy you," Stephen said. "At least Lettie likes Abby, and Abby doesn't have parents for you to impress."
"No," Connor said. "That's true, but her brother's a prat."
"He is, at that," Stephen agreed, both of them remembering a dead-looking future with giant bugs and mutant bats and a berk who didn't seem to give a damn he'd nearly got one of the team killed.
Then suddenly a figure appeared through the draping plastic and, "Jenny."
"Connor? Stephen?"
Abby and Matt caught up as Stephen said, "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, no, no, no," she said, backing away a few steps. "This can't be happening. What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" she asked, staring at the five of them. Then she laughed, pointing at them and saying in tones that made it clear she was hoping more than expecting it to be true, "This is a joke, right? But how did you know I was getting married?"
Connor found himself exchanging wincing looks with Stephen. This could not end well. "Married?" Abby echoed.
Matt, ignoring other people, as he did so often - not really a people person, that one - looked behind them through the plastic sheets as they talked.
"You're here, and . . . Oh, my God, there's an anomaly," Jenny said.
Jenny was sharp, you had to give her that. "I'm Matt Anderson," said the Irishman as Jenny turned away, clearly trying to compose herself.
"What am I going to tell him?" demanded Jenny.
"Who?" Abby asked.
Stephen was shaking behind him, and Connor was rather well aware that the man was trying not to laugh. "Don't," he muttered, "Because if you do, I'll start, and then Abby and Jenny will kill us. You know what Jenny's like with a rifle."
"Michael?" Jenny said as though they should know who that is. "My fiance?" Which was kind of obvious, now that Connor thought about it. "I'm not a demanding bride," Jenny said, over Abby's faint, 'Oh.' "Really. I'm not. Rain, I can handle. Wrong flowers? Fine. Dinosaurs? I draw the line."
He didn't know why he did it, it was habit, really. Years of being sick of people conflating 'really old' with 'dinosaur' had made it a reflex. "Actually, they're more like prehistoric dogs this time."
Their former PR specialist was . . . unpleased. "Jenny, the anomaly's locked and we've dealt with the incursion," Abby said comfortingly. "It's going to be okay."
Just as Jenny started to look up, hopeful that this had not come back to haunt her new, anomaly-free life, Matt said, "We should really clear the place for a day or two. 'Til we know everything's safe."
As Abby and Jenny both glared at Matt, Stephen finally cracked, bursting into laughter. The ridiculous nature of the moment caught up to him, and Connor joined him, howling. The two women were more than sufficient to cow Matt into saying hastily, "Or we could search the rest of the property now and keep and eye on things while you get married."
"Great," said Jenny.
"Ow," said Connor as Abby kicked him.
"Bloody hell," Stephen added as the same booted foot struck him right after.
Coming to a decision, Jenny said, "And what the hell, you're all invited to the wedding."
When they split up, Abby shot Stephen and Connor another glare and stomped off with Matt. "She's really not that happy with me, I guess," Connor said. "Sometimes I think Abby doesn't quite understand that I'm not . . ." he trailed off, not sure how to express it.
"That you're not one of her girlfriends?" Stephen offered. "I think, because we're both slightly less than normal, Sarah and Abby think it means we're not blokes who watch sports and like looking at nice-looking women."
"Maybe," Connor nodded.
They ambled up to Jenny, who'd been happily wandering the grounds with her groom. "Stephen, Connor, I've told Michael all about the mad PR firm we used to work for," she said.
Michael shook their hands. "Nice to meet you."
"I don't think mad's quite the term," Connor said with a grin.
Michael looked at Stephen, and said, "So, you're all in public relations?"
"Well, Stephen got in a bit sideways," Connor said. He'd been waiting to use this ever since Stephen had admitted to it back in the Cretaceous. "He was doing modelling. Turned out to have a bit of a talent for talking single women into things."
"Yes," said Stephen, shooting Connor a look that promised revenge, or at least frogs in the spare pants in his locker at the ARC. "Of course, Connor's really the one with his finger on the pulse of what women want. Practically one of the girls."
"I will tell my daughter you're after getting back on the high score board at Barbie Horse Adventures," Connor told him, pointedly.
Laughing, Jenny said, "You're still losing to Caitlyn at that?"
"He loses to Sarah at that too. Actually Sarah and Lynn are in a duel to the death for the top spot," Connor said. "Or so Abby tells me."
Michael shot a curious look at the EMDs then, causing Jenny to say hastily, "Paintball!"
"Yeah," Connor said, catching on. "Team-building exercises and . . . things. Spend a lot of time on it," he felt himself starting to ramble and desperately tried to think of a way out of it.
"Connor's bad at it," Stephen said cheerfully cutting Connor off. "Goodness knows the time I've spent trying to teach him how to hit the broad side of a barn."
"Drinks?" Jenny said, a tad desperate herself. "Abby! And . . . Matt, was it?" They turned to see the two coming up to them. "Join us inside for drinks?"
"I'd best catch up with Emily," Matt said.
Abby smiled. "I'd love to," she said to Jenny. She turned her back on Connor and ignored him.
"Do you know what I did?" Connor asked Stephen. "She wasn't angry at me until the hyaenodon."
Stephen shrugged. "Maybe she didn't like our 'distracted bait' technique."
"That could be it," Connor said. Abby hated it when he let himself be the bait. He was usually in for being yelled at when he did it.
Once inside the mansion, they joined Michael and Jenny in champagne, Michael fishing for hints about what Jenny had done at the 'PR firm'. Eventually Michael wound up chatting with Stephen while Jenny told them about meeting with her fiance. It just sort of slipped out. "You know," he said to Abby, "We should get married here."
Abby shot him a look that was half shock and half something he couldn't quite read. "Connor," she said. "You haven't-"
And suddenly, it was as though all his worries about Abby, about whether she really wanted to be with him, really wanted to marry him, would ever say yes, it all sort of bubbled up. "I have asked," he said, standing suddenly. "But you don't seem all that interested in saying 'yes'." Jenny's eyes were wide as she looked from Connor to Abby and back. He knew he was making an idiot of himself, but feeling overwhelmed by the feeling that Abby was just playing nice for Lynn and his sakes made him feel reckless. "You know what? I give up. You don't want to, fine. I bought the ring for you, so you might as well have it, but I'll stop asking." Then he turned and stalked away, tossing Abby the box.
He walked away, not really sure where he was going, but just staying away from people. He didn't want to see any people, especially since Abby probably thought he was a right berk for doing that. Ten minutes of aimless wandering and he pulled out his mobile and called Lynn. "Dad?" she sounded breathless.
"Hey, sweetheart. What are you up to?"
" . . . Stuff."
"Let me talk to Danny," Connor said. There was some shuffling, then Danny's voice was on the line. "What are you getting Lynn into?"
"Connor, I am hurt that you would think I would get your daughter into anything amoral or otherwise unfortunate," Danny said.
"Just promise me it doesn't involve Gertrude's head."
There was a pause, then Danny said in what was a clearly deliberately unconvincing voice. "No. It has nothing to do with Gertrude's head."
"Put Lynn back on, would you?" Connor asked. "And Danny, if you get caught at whatever you're doing, I'm not putting up any money for bail."
There was some more fumbling, then Lynn was on the line again, blurting out, "You're only in trouble if you get caught!"
"Don't quote Aladdin at me. How are we getting Gertrude's head back?"
"We'll figure something out," Lynn told him cheerfully. "So, how's things going?"
"Turns out Jenny's getting married and we sort of stumbled on it," he said. "Anyhow, we've been sort of invited to the wedding-"
"Can I come?"
"No," Connor said. "I think Lester won't be happy if we drag you along to an anomaly site. Anyhow, Danny's off the rotation at the moment, you know."
Lynn sighed disappointedly. "Okay. Oh! Gotta go!" Then she was gone and Connor was seriously considering heading right back to London, anomaly or no.
******************
Hours later he was stuck in the wine cellar, having avoided talking to Abby or anyone else for hours, then found the rest of the hyaenodon family. Staring out the window, he saw a familiar two pairs of legs walking down the drive. "Danny? Lynn?"
"Dad?" Lynn hurried over and crouched by the window. "What're you doing down there?"
"Hoping I could get reception to get Abby or someone on the line," he said. "We thought there was just the one hyaenodon, but there's a whole family."
"And they're out," Danny said with a sigh. "Why do animals keep going through? Aren't they supposed to be frightened of unfamiliar things?"
"Abby thinks it might have to do with a magnetic internal compass that lets animals migrate so well," Connor said. "Anyhow, you've got to warn the others. Hopefully we can let the wedding go on and keep the guests from being eaten."
"Right," Danny said. "Connor, I'll come in to get you, Lynn, go and warn the others."
By the time they got up there, Lynn was looking ready to kill someone as adults pinched her cheeks over her cute hysterics. "You imbecilic halfwits!" she shouted.
"You're girl's brilliant," Danny said idly as Abby finally pushed her way past the crowd, followed by Stephen.
Lynn scampered past them, handing the pistol she'd clearly stolen from Danny if the look on his face was any indication, over to Jenny. "Mum said you're like an action hero with a gun."
Then the bloody things attacked. Stephen, as was his wont, superheroed his way about while Lynn got scooped up and carted off by Emily, much to Connor's relief. The whole thing was a mess of chaos.
Connor found himself playing evacuation director with Danny until they finally received the all-clear from Matt. They got back, greeted by Jenny saying, "Connor, can you arrange something so that Lester and officiate for me and Michael. It seems the vicar's not up to much."
"Sure," Connor said, feeling a tad guilty they hadn't been more careful and had wrecked Jenny's wedding. "I'm really sorry."
"It's alright," she told him. "At least this reminded me why I left."
"Ow!" came Matt's voice from the far side of the room. "What're . . . ow! Stop kicking me!"
"Next time, when I say there's monsters, you'd better bloody believe there's monsters!" Lynn snapped, and kicked Matt one more time for good measure. "Patronising berk."
"Lynn, don't call my superiors berks, please," Connor said. "And no threatening him with Gertrude's head."
While Emily apologised with lovely sincerity to Lynn for not believing her and Matt nursed his bruised shins, Connor collected a monitor and began hooking things up. "Connor?" Abby said.
"Yeah?" he asked, sorting through some wires for the right connector.
"I'm sorry."
"Wha - ow," he smacked his head on the table as he sat up. "What for? I'm the one who should be apologising, throwing the ring at you like that and all."
"I'm sorry I made you think I didn't really want to get married, the ring's perfect and I love it and I love you and yes, I'll marry you!"
"Really?" he asked. Wordlessly she nodded and practically tackled him, kissing him.
"Ahem," Jenny said from behind them. "Far be it from me to interfere with the course of true love and all that, but I'd rather like to be married sometime today."
"Right, right," Connor scrambled out from under Abby and went back to work.
In the background he could hear the others congratulating Abby on the engagement and Jenny cooing over the ring while Lynn bemoaned her lack of opportunity to train Ernie to deliver small packages and informed Abby that the Temple-Maitland wedding should have a reptile theme and a giant anaconda-shaped cake.
A few phone calls later and Jenny was married via Skype, and Connor was feeling irritated that he hadn't been allowed a proper setup, having been backed into standing between the pair while holding his laptop because Jenny was in too much of a hurry to let him scavenge the right parts.
When the newlywed couple began their first dance, stopping every few seconds to kiss, Lynn, plopped between Connor and Abby, said, "If you don't want to eat food someone else has spit on, why's it okay to stick your mouth into someone else's?"
Stephen, comfortably sprawled off to the side taking pictures for Sarah, said, "To use Connor's explanation, Lynn, you'll understand when you go insane with the rest of us grownups."
Sarah's tinny voice issued from the mobile at once, berating both Connor and Stephen while Emily looked flummoxed at them, Matt expressionlessly staring until he locked eyes with Lynn, who mouthed, "It's on," at him. Danny was laughing and Abby managed to snuggle into Connor and look sternly disapproving at the same time.
It was his life writ small into that moment, and Connor wouldn't have it any other way.
*************************
Emily had been duly introduced to Barbie Horse Adventures, the ongoing attempts to keep Stephen from winning at the game, Gertrude (still headless), then Gertrude's head when Burton came storming into the ARC in fine fettle because he had woken to a deinonychus head in his bed, covered in fake blood, which he had promptly blamed Becker of all people for.
"I beg your pardon?" Becker asked, looking even more staid and unmovingly military than usual.
Burton was almost frothing at the mouth. "You heard me! Whatever idiotic practical joke you've decided to pull, Captain, I will not stand for it! I-"
"Gertrude!" Abby exclaimed, interrupting the ranting billionaire. "Really, I just hope whichever of you stole her head are ashamed of yourselves! Lynn's been almost distraught!" she lied.
Danny, turning red and apparently holding his breath lest he incriminate himself, ducked down a nearby hall, followed by Stephen and Sarah. Connor took in a shaking breath and backed Abby up. "Thank you," he said. "My brother had just won the bid for this on eBay when he died. It means a lot to me."
"Well, I . . . er . . ." the dapper man said as Connor scooped the head up and headed for his locker, dumping it in the bottom.
Emily poked her head in and commented, "It's not quite accurate, is it?"
"Well, it was modelled before we knew they had feathers," Connor said. "It was pretty accurate to the science at the time in most ways."
"A little like Crystal Palace, then?" Emily asked.
"A bit," he agreed.
"Can I ask," she said, "Given that you all attempt to keep the gates -- anomalies, secret from the masses, why does Caitlyn know about them?"
He sighed. "A couple years back she got kidnapped by Leek, who used to work here. And Helen. Anyhow, that mess pretty much gave it away, not to mention the time some of my friends got curious, followed me and brought home a dodo while they were supposed to be babysitting her. So, now she knows enough that I just pretty much tell her what's going on. There's no real point in keeping the broad strokes of it a secret."
Emily nodded. "I see your point."
His mobile rang then, and Connor glanced at the display in surprise. "Lynn? Is something wrong?"
"I am breaking the school rules about mobiles to tell you that if you confirm that all the gross stuff Erin's sister just told us about blood, monthly cramping, where babies come from and why you adults get all weird about touching each other weird, I'm telling everyone your going crazy theory, because it sounds like it's completely right."
"What did Erin's sister tell you?" Connor asked, wanting to know before he said anything one way or another. He was treated to a diatribe about menstrual cycles that eventually forced him to look around, desperate, and grab the only female person nearby. "Hang on a sec, Lynn. Emily, help!"
The Victorian woman took the phone from his hand, and after a moment of fumbling to get it right, then she took over and listened to Lynn's whole story. "It's not as bad as all that," she offered when Lynn had apparently wound down. "Some women get all those, but it's only a few days, the cramping can be dealt with, with heat and I'm sure the pain reducing items are far better now." A long pause. "Yes, that's where babies come from." Another, longer, pause. "When you put it that way, it does sound a little mad, but it's quite true."
Lynn's, "Why would you do that?" came over the phone, audible even to Connor.
"It's rather fun, and if people want babies, they have to do it," Emily told her. "Your friend Erin's sister was accurate, if a tad gauche. You may want to talk to Abby about it, though." She looked at Connor, "She wants to talk to you again."
"Thanks. Lynn?"
"I'm going to tell everyone we're going to go mad when we hit thirteen," Lynn said.
"No, you're not," Connor said firmly. "Lynn, mad is relative, especially in this case. Second, most people don't see it that way and I don't want to get called in and yelled at for telling you things other people think are lies."
"Is that why Sarah yells at Stephen when he agrees with you about it?"
"Yes."
There was a pause, then Lynn said, rather doubtfully, "Okay, then. But I still think people should be warned. Because that's really, really weird."
"You'll feel different at thirteenish," Connor promised her. "Now stop breaking the mobile rules."
"Bye Dad."
He turned to Emily. "Thank you. I'm sorry, but I'd always planned on having Abby explain everything, or at least a female friend."
She gave him a wry smile. "I wish I'd had parents as willing to explain it all. I'm happy to help." Then she frowned. "That reminds me, I must ask someone about current means of coping."
Seeing Sarah coming around the corner, Connor fled, saying, "Sarah, I think Emily needs to talk to you -- well, someone female, at any rate, excuse me."
He had something to work on, anyhow. Burton had grudgingly offered him access to some of the peripheral calculations about the anomalies going on at Prospero, and he had some ideas he wanted to put into motion. One week later he had his chance to test it.
"Is that your XBox?" Stephen asked curiously as he flipped switches and ran a few diagnostics on his laptop.
"Yes," he replied.
"Lynn won't be happy about that," Becker said from his other side.
"I know that," Connor winced, imagining her shrill voice when she came back to discover she wasn't going to be able to play her latest personal fad, Lego Star Wars.
"So, what is it?" Stephen asked, nodding at Connor's invention.
"A dating calculator," Connor said absently. "I wanted to test it out. I think I messed up some, because it's sort of wavering. Telling me the Pliocene and then 1800-something."
Stephen 'hmm'ed. "Well, when you get that cleared up, it should be fairly useful."
"Burton may be a bit of a smug berk, but he's also a bit of a genius," Connor admitted. "I'm working off his calculations, after all."
And then the anomaly unlocked and a terror bird came hurtling out of it, screeching at them. "You're not too bad yourself," Stephen said as he shot at the thing. "You managed to get it within a decent range."
"Get it locked, Temple!" Becker shouted, dodging away from a lunge. The bird seemed to decide they were too much trouble as it spun around and ran back through.
Connor relocked it, only to have the bloody thing pop open again a minute later. "Damn it," he muttered. "There must be something wrong with this one. We'll need a different machine," he said, running a diagnostic even as he argued with the machine to try to keep the anomaly closed.
A familiar screeching echoed down the halls, this one from somewhere in the rest of the old prison complex. Abby's voice came out of their comms, "There's a terror bird down here!"
Stephen and Becker exchanged some sort of manly, gun-bearing psychic exchange, and Stephen was off, leaving Connor alone with Becker and a few SFs by the flickering anomaly. A moment later, though, Danny was saying, "What the hell?"
The others all returned a bit later, Abby saying, "It's like these weaker anomalies are opening up all over." She turned to Connor, "It was an anomaly, but it looked paler, and it was gone almost right after the bird went back through."
"So, it's like it was just there and gone?" Connor asked, frowning.
"It would explain about the missing tourist," Stephen said. "If it just snapped open long enough for the man to get snatched, then closed."
"What happened?" Matt asked as he came striding up to them with the locker Connor had asked for. While the others explained, Connor booted up the new one, locked the anomaly, then, "Bugger!"
"I thought you were locking it," Becker said.
"I did! It popped open with this one too," Connor protested. "There's something . . ." he trailed off as the idea struck him. "There's something wrong with this anomaly. The lockers won't work on it."
Suddenly the thing rippled, "Something's coming through!" Matt exclaimed.
Two people came through, filthy, familiar, were greeted by Matt's EMD and hit the floor unconscious. "Cutter!" Stephen shouted, racing to his friend's side. Beside him lay Clarke, looking even worse for wear than Cutter.
"Danny?" Connor said, "You have handcuffs on you? Maybe a billy club?"
"No," Danny said ruefully. "But I think we can bodge something up."
"Stephen?" Cutter said, groaning.
"Hey, Nick," Stephen grinned down at his friend. "I'm right here, and you've made it home."
"Nice to have you back, mate," Danny said cheerfully as he hastily consulted with one of the SFs. "I think Lester's missed arguing with you."
Cutter looked like . . . well, like Stephen and Connor had when they'd made it back. Filthy, ragged, tired, bearded and very relieved. "You and Connor alright?" he asked.
"We're okay," Connor told him. "Spent a year fending off that bloody spinosaurus, but we're okay. What's up with Clarke?" who hadn't regained consciousness.
Snorting, Cutter said, "If Helen's his mother he certainly didn't inherit much from her besides the nastiness."
"I hate to break this up," Matt said, "But Danny-"
"Stephen," Connor cut in.
"What?" Stephen asked.
"No," Connor said, "I mean, Matt, you were about to tell Danny to take Cutter back to the ARC, right? Send Stephen."
"Why?" Matt asked suspiciously.
Abby snorted, "Matt, just because you don't like that Danny's as much a team leader as you are, doesn't mean you get to boot him out just because you butt heads."
"Fine. Stephen," Matt said. "Ethan's on his way and we need to be ready."
Danny straightened, then as Stephen pulled Cutter to his feet and started helping the man out the door, the former policeman pulled a gun out of his jeans where it had been concealed, strode over to the two men and dropped it into Cutter's palm. "Just in case."
Matt looked about to say something, but he just shook his head disapprovingly and walked off to consult with the SFs about a perimeter and catching Ethan. A few of them separated themselves out and picked up Clarke's dead weight and carted him away. "I don't suppose you have any more, do you?" Becker asked, looking like Lynn at a pet store snake tank. Big eyes and Oliver Twist with just a dash of petulance. It wasn't a good look on him.
"You don't have one?" Danny and Stephen chorused. Then Stephen said, "And no, I'm not giving you mine."
Becker vanished down the hall after Matt, muttering about his pet shotgun.
After Connor created the feedback loop with the anomaly things suddenly moved quickly, and then it all stopped as Danny set eyes on Ethan for the first time. "Patrick?" he asked, reaching for the dark haired man. "Patrick," he breathed in relief.
"It's his brother," Abby said in disbelief.
But Connor's thought was only of one thing as Ethan or Patrick or however he thought of himself was carted off. "Matt, can you make sure they run a paternity test on Ethan and Clarke?"
"Why?" Matt asked, honestly puzzled.
"No one told you?" Connor said. "Lynn's Clarke's biological daughter, and we're pretty sure Helen slept with Patrick, because Danny's related to Lynn."
Matt blinked at him a moment. "That's . . . a tad complicated, but I'll make sure that happens."
"Thanks," Connor said, then headed back to the anomaly. He still had to figure out what was wrong with it. It was as he tried to break it down, start over from the top that he recalled Burton's equations that he'd seen. With Abby's help, he was proved right. It was two anomalies. On a hunch, he pointed his new dating doohickey (he thought it was rather catchier than his 'dating calculator', but he'd never tell anyone that was it's real name) at first one than the other. "Plioscene," he said to her. Just where the bloody turkeys were coming from. "1867," he told Abby. "Someone has to tell Emily."
They were going to tell Emily, but they were derailed by a shouting match between Burton and Cutter, who was apparently so incensed he was sounding a tad like Connor's gran as he shouted, "You daft ninny! The woman planned to wipe out all of humanity! Don't stand there and try to pretend you weren't tricked like the numpty you are!"
"Numpty?" Connor muttered to Stephen, who was watching the show, bemused.
"He must be upset to be channelling his mum," Stephen muttered back. "It's not like him at all."
"Where's Clarke? And Ethan . . . Patrick, whichever?" Connor asked.
Stephen shrugged. "There's a few rooms down the west corridor they're using."
Connor's first stop was the lab where Matt had managed to push a rush on the results, because testing for paternity was relatively uncomplicated, all things considered, and they had state of the art technology. Ethan was Clarke's father. Which meant he was Lynn's grandfather, and Connor had to talk to the man and figure out what to do about it. But first, he swung by the room they were holding Clarke in. He wanted to get in a little gloating.
Clarke was still a wreck. He was sitting in his chair, shivering, whipping around at every small sound, looking like a hunted animal. Considering what the distant past was like, that was probably an accurate state of affairs. Still, Connor was a tad disappointed. He'd thought Helen and Ethan's son would be made of sterner stuff than this. "Where's Cutter?" the man asked, eyes wide. "Is he . . . I mean . . ."
"Cutter's just having a shouting match with Philip Burton over being stupid enough to believe anything your mother says," Connor said. "Really, though, you don't seem to have enjoyed your little trip to the past."
The formerly powerful man just shuddered. "She . . . she made it sound so simple. We're from the present, we've conquered nature," he said. Connor resisted the urge to smack him just for saying the cliche alone. "Intellect conquering the savage world and all that," he continued. "But it wasn't. And when I nearly died she told me to forget about it. Forget that I was nearly eaten by a boar the size of a rhino!"
"You'll be going to prison," Connor said. "I'd think that would weigh against coming back."
Clarke shook his head. "You wouldn't say that if you'd been there," he whimpered. "Prison will be safer."
The man was broken. As he left, Connor told him, "Stephen and I were trapped in the Cretaceous for the last year. There've never been bigger land animals than during the age of dinosaurs, and the next time you're scared of a big pig, remember that we were stuck with a pack of raptors tailing us for a year. I guess you're just not all you thought you were."
Somehow, Connor rather thought that Lynn would have handled a year alone in the prehistoric past better than Clarke.
His next stop was the room they were keeping Ethan in. With him was Danny, looking desperate. "Danny, Patrick. Or do you prefer Ethan?" Connor asked. "Sorry to interrupt, Danny, but the tests came back positive. Patrick's definitely Clarke's father."
"The whinging sod in the next room?" asked the man. "How-"
"Do you remember meeting a woman named Helen Cutter?" Connor asked. "Pretty woman, loved to shove her breasts in your face if she was trying to convince you of things?"
"She did that to you?" Danny asked, amused despite himself.
"Nah, but she did it to Cutter and Stephen every time I saw her."
"I do recall something of that from the one time, yes," Danny mused.
"What about . . ." Ethan realised what that meant. "That's why she didn't come back, she was . . . but why didn't she take me with her?"
"She wasn't raising him," Connor said bluntly. "She handed him over to a family up north and visited once in a while to make sure she still had her claws in him."
That was when Danny looked like he'd had a revelation. "What did she say about me, Patrick? What did she tell you that made you think I'd ever have abandoned you? I did everything I could to find you."
"She said that you'd have gone through the anomaly after me, that . . . that it-"
"There was no anomaly to be found after you disappeared," Danny said softly. "There was just an empty house and your friend who'd made it out. For so long I thought he'd killed you."
"There wasn't a gate? There wasn't still . . . but I've seen it," Ethan said desperately. "Gates that open again and again to the same place and time, pretty much, Helen showed me-"
Connor said, just as gently, "But not the one in that house. It didn't open again until just about two years ago, and if Danny hadn't been at the right place and time to see it, he'd never have known."
"As soon as I did I quit my job and joined up here because it was my best chance at finding you. Patrick, please!"
The man seemed lost as he said slowly, "She lied. Everything was a lie. Why . . . Danny?"
"Yeah?"
And for the first time, Ethan . . . Patrick looked just bewildered and lost, shades of the confused boy who'd stumbled through an anomaly and been tricked by Helen. "How's mum?" he came out with suddenly.
As Danny began to catch his brother up on years of missed news, Connor slipped out and went to corral Lester. "Lester, about Ethan. Patrick. Whichever."
"What about him?"
"Helen had her claws in him. I'm not saying he's not done some awful things, but you may want to get a psychiatrist in to see him. He may not be as bad as he seems," Connor said. "I don't know, but just . . ." he trailed off.
"Just bloody Helen," came Cutter's voice from behind him. "Never in a million years would I have though I'd have felt such relief seeing my own wife fall over a cliff with a raptor."
Connor just shook his head and sighed. "I'm heading home. I'm going to have to tell Lynn the news and go back to trying to convince her we're not having an anaconda-shaped cake at the wedding."
"Not a horse?" Cutter called after him.
"No, she's harassing Stephen about that. She's working on convincing Sarah to have a horse-themed wedding just to see the look on Stephen's face."
Cutter hurtled off down the hall a moment later. "Stephen! Why didn't you say you were tying the knot! I thought you swore to eternal bachelorhood!"
Connor grinned to himself. He might have encouraged Lynn's suggestions of pink, pony-shaped cakes. Stephen was just so easy.
Epilogue
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Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything herein and no one's paying me to do it.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Children change almost everything.
AN: I was going to stop with this one, then I remembered all the plot threads I'd left hanging. So, the neverending story continues.
****************************************
"Jake, what are you doing?" Lettie asked as she looked in on Lynn and her erstwhile second son, who were deeply involved in a discussion about something to do with iguanas, ribbon, rings and maiasaurs.
He looked up at her, about to speak, when Lynn answered. "We're figuring out how Dad's going to propose to Abby. I keep telling him he's going to have to train Ernie to come to his treats if he wants to use him to deliver the ring to Abby."
"Use . . . Ernie?"
A sheepish look on his face, Connor said, "Erm . . . well, Abby wants me to propose when it's clear I'm not just doing it because I'm happy we're not dead, so I figured I'd best do some extra-romantic thing that requires a lot of planning and all."
"And this requires . . . who's Ernie?" Then Lettie thought about it. "What's Ernie?"
"Abby's iguana," Lynn told her. "We thought about using Rex, but he's as likely as not to lose the ring. Ernie'll just walk over."
Lettie stared. "You're having an iguana deliver the engagement ring? Because it's romantic?"
"Well, Abby says she's a lizard girl," Connor said defensively.
Dropping her head to her hands, Lettie said, "Jake . . ."
"It has to be . . . Abby, yeah?" he said. "I mean, it's got to be like her, right?"
"Why don't you just dress up like a lizard then," Lettie said.
He shook his head. "I thought about it, but when she heard that story about Keith and the chicken suit she told me outright I shouldn't, and . . ." he took in the look on her face. "Oh. You were being sarcastic."
"You're normally better at catching that," she said dryly. "Is there something wrong with flowers and a walk on the beach?"
Lynn gave her a disdainful look. "We're in England," she said pointedly. "It'll rain if he tries that."
"Since when are you victim to stereotypes propogated by everyone else about the UK?" Lettie asked.
There was a pause as the nine-year-old processed that sentence, then said, "So, you're saying it won't rain?"
"Taking her to where you met?" Lettie offered.
He shook his head. "That's under constant military surveillance since an anomaly's opened there more than once, and always to the same era. Anyhow, I don't really want to wander around the Forest of Dean for that long."
"First date?"
"Interrupted by that marsupial lion."
"First kiss?"
"Lynn interrupted and told us all about the fact that she had a five-pound bet on with Danny about it."
"Well, I thought he should make a turkey and stick it inside with the stuffing, then she'd find it there and he could tell her that since dinosaurs brought them together, he was using a dinosaur to bring them togetherer."
That prompted a baffled stare. Then, "Togetherer? Turkey?"
"Turkeys are some of the closest birds, anatomically, to dinosaurs," Connor said tiredly. "So, Lynn's trying to suggest I do the closest thing to cooking a velociraptor and sticking a ring in it."
Lettie shook her head and sighed. "That still doesn't answer togetherer."
"Well, they're already together," Lynn said. "So, if they get married, they're not just getting together, they're getting more together. Together-er."
"You are a terrible influence," she informed Connor.
"What's he done now?" Abby asked as she came in. She'd been doing her yoga in Lettie's back yard, since they were staying over for the weekend, which was why Lynn and Connor had taken the chance to plot in her absence.
"I am fully aware that you would never leave Lynn with the impression that it's okay to say, 'togetherer'," Lettie informed her.
Abby shot them both a speculative look. "Lynn, are you trying to get us married off again?"
"And people say men are afraid of commitment," Connor muttered as he left the three women in his life to hide from the conversation's sudden turn to a lengthy discussion of some television show about fashion designers and their competition to make wedding dresses. Once upstairs, he pulled the small box out of his pocket that held the ring he was hoping to propose to Abby with. A year's worth of backpay had given him enough to afford a custom design, and he'd spent a long time getting it right with the jeweller. The ring itself was designed to look like a lizard, but the metal was steel, chosen because it didn't tarnish and was hard-wearing. There were two tiny yellow sapphires winking from the eyes, and the tail and forefeet came together to hold a diamond.
He'd waited three days after returning and moving back in with Abby and Lynn, planned to propose, had managed to get Lettie to watch Lynn for the evening and let him and Abby go out to dinner. He'd been about to ask again, this time with no post-drama adrenaline, when she said, "I'm really glad you're not proposing now, Conn."
"How come?" he'd asked.
She'd smiled at him and said, "Because this soon after I said no, it would have been really obvious you were just waiting for there to be no, 'thank God we're alive' moment associated with it."
After he'd been called in from the field to get Burton out of his self-made death trap where he was slowly suffocating to death, Connor had internally cursed, pushing back his intended proposal date. Abby had been too furious after Burton's attempts to get the menagerie animals put down for Connor to try his luck, the mess with the idiots in that stupid town backwoods of nowhere and their illegal petrol operation had pushed things back again. He was now trying to plan something elaborate enough that Abby couldn't say he was doing it because of adrenaline or something, but just simple enough that he could pull it off at a moment's notice.
It was not easy.
But with everything going on, he'd begun to doubt that Abby wanted to get married at all, and when he was feeling particularly awful, he wondered if she wanted to stay with him full stop, and was just sticking around for Lynn.
Danny was almost recovered from his broken limbs, but he hadn't checked out yet for going into the field. So the team dispatched to the grand old estate to look for the anomaly in its basement was Abby, Connor, Stephen and Matt. Stephen and Connor had, in the year they were gone, developed a sort of bait and draw technique, both of them pretending they weren't paying attention in order to trick predators into falling over cliffs and running into things. When it came down to it, Stephen didn't know the ins and outs of animal behaviour generally, but he knew what to do with animals that were tracking him.
Senses heightened by his time in the past, he and Stephen both deliberately each presented their backs to one of the two areas the animal was most likely to come from, then covered for each other's deliberate blind spot. Connor was filling the silence with empty chatter when he heard movement behind him and saw Stephen's EMD come up. He whirled around, his shot hitting the wolflike creature only a moment after Stephen's did.
"Hyaenodon, male," Abby said.
Connor shrugged at Stephen when the man shot him a look. "What? I do dinosaurs, not ancient mammals."
They split into pairs, Abby going with Matt, shooting Connor a mildly irritated look as she went, Stephen going with Connor. "How are things with Abby?" Stephen asked.
He made a face. "I think I'm going to have to make a huge production out of proposing so she'll know I really mean it," Connor said with a sigh. "I've got the ring and all, I just don't know what to do. Lynn thinks I should tie the ring onto a ribbon around the iguana's neck and get him to walk up to Abby to musical fanfare."
"Can you train a lizard?" Stephen asked, doubtfully.
Connor shrugged, "Who knows? I think Lynn's going to try, though." Then he asked, "So, how are things going with Sarah?"
"Well, her mother is unhappy because I'm not a nice Muslim lad, and her dad's less than pleased that I'm from," Stephen put on a terrible accent that sounded like a vague collision of cockney with Welsh that left Connor wondering what it was supposed to be, "A bleedin', snippy, posh, twit who wouldn't know an honest day's labour." Stephen shook his head. "Or something like that. Apparently it's fine to speak like an educated person if you're his wife or daughter, but not me."
That was sort of funny, really. "So, her Dad's what? Some regular bloke who switched over from the C of E to Islam?"
"Pretty much," Stephen said. "Of course, I expect my parents will be less than thrilled I'm engaged to one of the 'invading hordes'."
"Don't like immigrants much?" Connor asked, wincing. "The pair of you do seem stuck on both ends."
"I almost envy you," Stephen said. "At least Lettie likes Abby, and Abby doesn't have parents for you to impress."
"No," Connor said. "That's true, but her brother's a prat."
"He is, at that," Stephen agreed, both of them remembering a dead-looking future with giant bugs and mutant bats and a berk who didn't seem to give a damn he'd nearly got one of the team killed.
Then suddenly a figure appeared through the draping plastic and, "Jenny."
"Connor? Stephen?"
Abby and Matt caught up as Stephen said, "What are you doing here?"
"Oh, no, no, no," she said, backing away a few steps. "This can't be happening. What am I doing here? What are you doing here?" she asked, staring at the five of them. Then she laughed, pointing at them and saying in tones that made it clear she was hoping more than expecting it to be true, "This is a joke, right? But how did you know I was getting married?"
Connor found himself exchanging wincing looks with Stephen. This could not end well. "Married?" Abby echoed.
Matt, ignoring other people, as he did so often - not really a people person, that one - looked behind them through the plastic sheets as they talked.
"You're here, and . . . Oh, my God, there's an anomaly," Jenny said.
Jenny was sharp, you had to give her that. "I'm Matt Anderson," said the Irishman as Jenny turned away, clearly trying to compose herself.
"What am I going to tell him?" demanded Jenny.
"Who?" Abby asked.
Stephen was shaking behind him, and Connor was rather well aware that the man was trying not to laugh. "Don't," he muttered, "Because if you do, I'll start, and then Abby and Jenny will kill us. You know what Jenny's like with a rifle."
"Michael?" Jenny said as though they should know who that is. "My fiance?" Which was kind of obvious, now that Connor thought about it. "I'm not a demanding bride," Jenny said, over Abby's faint, 'Oh.' "Really. I'm not. Rain, I can handle. Wrong flowers? Fine. Dinosaurs? I draw the line."
He didn't know why he did it, it was habit, really. Years of being sick of people conflating 'really old' with 'dinosaur' had made it a reflex. "Actually, they're more like prehistoric dogs this time."
Their former PR specialist was . . . unpleased. "Jenny, the anomaly's locked and we've dealt with the incursion," Abby said comfortingly. "It's going to be okay."
Just as Jenny started to look up, hopeful that this had not come back to haunt her new, anomaly-free life, Matt said, "We should really clear the place for a day or two. 'Til we know everything's safe."
As Abby and Jenny both glared at Matt, Stephen finally cracked, bursting into laughter. The ridiculous nature of the moment caught up to him, and Connor joined him, howling. The two women were more than sufficient to cow Matt into saying hastily, "Or we could search the rest of the property now and keep and eye on things while you get married."
"Great," said Jenny.
"Ow," said Connor as Abby kicked him.
"Bloody hell," Stephen added as the same booted foot struck him right after.
Coming to a decision, Jenny said, "And what the hell, you're all invited to the wedding."
When they split up, Abby shot Stephen and Connor another glare and stomped off with Matt. "She's really not that happy with me, I guess," Connor said. "Sometimes I think Abby doesn't quite understand that I'm not . . ." he trailed off, not sure how to express it.
"That you're not one of her girlfriends?" Stephen offered. "I think, because we're both slightly less than normal, Sarah and Abby think it means we're not blokes who watch sports and like looking at nice-looking women."
"Maybe," Connor nodded.
They ambled up to Jenny, who'd been happily wandering the grounds with her groom. "Stephen, Connor, I've told Michael all about the mad PR firm we used to work for," she said.
Michael shook their hands. "Nice to meet you."
"I don't think mad's quite the term," Connor said with a grin.
Michael looked at Stephen, and said, "So, you're all in public relations?"
"Well, Stephen got in a bit sideways," Connor said. He'd been waiting to use this ever since Stephen had admitted to it back in the Cretaceous. "He was doing modelling. Turned out to have a bit of a talent for talking single women into things."
"Yes," said Stephen, shooting Connor a look that promised revenge, or at least frogs in the spare pants in his locker at the ARC. "Of course, Connor's really the one with his finger on the pulse of what women want. Practically one of the girls."
"I will tell my daughter you're after getting back on the high score board at Barbie Horse Adventures," Connor told him, pointedly.
Laughing, Jenny said, "You're still losing to Caitlyn at that?"
"He loses to Sarah at that too. Actually Sarah and Lynn are in a duel to the death for the top spot," Connor said. "Or so Abby tells me."
Michael shot a curious look at the EMDs then, causing Jenny to say hastily, "Paintball!"
"Yeah," Connor said, catching on. "Team-building exercises and . . . things. Spend a lot of time on it," he felt himself starting to ramble and desperately tried to think of a way out of it.
"Connor's bad at it," Stephen said cheerfully cutting Connor off. "Goodness knows the time I've spent trying to teach him how to hit the broad side of a barn."
"Drinks?" Jenny said, a tad desperate herself. "Abby! And . . . Matt, was it?" They turned to see the two coming up to them. "Join us inside for drinks?"
"I'd best catch up with Emily," Matt said.
Abby smiled. "I'd love to," she said to Jenny. She turned her back on Connor and ignored him.
"Do you know what I did?" Connor asked Stephen. "She wasn't angry at me until the hyaenodon."
Stephen shrugged. "Maybe she didn't like our 'distracted bait' technique."
"That could be it," Connor said. Abby hated it when he let himself be the bait. He was usually in for being yelled at when he did it.
Once inside the mansion, they joined Michael and Jenny in champagne, Michael fishing for hints about what Jenny had done at the 'PR firm'. Eventually Michael wound up chatting with Stephen while Jenny told them about meeting with her fiance. It just sort of slipped out. "You know," he said to Abby, "We should get married here."
Abby shot him a look that was half shock and half something he couldn't quite read. "Connor," she said. "You haven't-"
And suddenly, it was as though all his worries about Abby, about whether she really wanted to be with him, really wanted to marry him, would ever say yes, it all sort of bubbled up. "I have asked," he said, standing suddenly. "But you don't seem all that interested in saying 'yes'." Jenny's eyes were wide as she looked from Connor to Abby and back. He knew he was making an idiot of himself, but feeling overwhelmed by the feeling that Abby was just playing nice for Lynn and his sakes made him feel reckless. "You know what? I give up. You don't want to, fine. I bought the ring for you, so you might as well have it, but I'll stop asking." Then he turned and stalked away, tossing Abby the box.
He walked away, not really sure where he was going, but just staying away from people. He didn't want to see any people, especially since Abby probably thought he was a right berk for doing that. Ten minutes of aimless wandering and he pulled out his mobile and called Lynn. "Dad?" she sounded breathless.
"Hey, sweetheart. What are you up to?"
" . . . Stuff."
"Let me talk to Danny," Connor said. There was some shuffling, then Danny's voice was on the line. "What are you getting Lynn into?"
"Connor, I am hurt that you would think I would get your daughter into anything amoral or otherwise unfortunate," Danny said.
"Just promise me it doesn't involve Gertrude's head."
There was a pause, then Danny said in what was a clearly deliberately unconvincing voice. "No. It has nothing to do with Gertrude's head."
"Put Lynn back on, would you?" Connor asked. "And Danny, if you get caught at whatever you're doing, I'm not putting up any money for bail."
There was some more fumbling, then Lynn was on the line again, blurting out, "You're only in trouble if you get caught!"
"Don't quote Aladdin at me. How are we getting Gertrude's head back?"
"We'll figure something out," Lynn told him cheerfully. "So, how's things going?"
"Turns out Jenny's getting married and we sort of stumbled on it," he said. "Anyhow, we've been sort of invited to the wedding-"
"Can I come?"
"No," Connor said. "I think Lester won't be happy if we drag you along to an anomaly site. Anyhow, Danny's off the rotation at the moment, you know."
Lynn sighed disappointedly. "Okay. Oh! Gotta go!" Then she was gone and Connor was seriously considering heading right back to London, anomaly or no.
******************
Hours later he was stuck in the wine cellar, having avoided talking to Abby or anyone else for hours, then found the rest of the hyaenodon family. Staring out the window, he saw a familiar two pairs of legs walking down the drive. "Danny? Lynn?"
"Dad?" Lynn hurried over and crouched by the window. "What're you doing down there?"
"Hoping I could get reception to get Abby or someone on the line," he said. "We thought there was just the one hyaenodon, but there's a whole family."
"And they're out," Danny said with a sigh. "Why do animals keep going through? Aren't they supposed to be frightened of unfamiliar things?"
"Abby thinks it might have to do with a magnetic internal compass that lets animals migrate so well," Connor said. "Anyhow, you've got to warn the others. Hopefully we can let the wedding go on and keep the guests from being eaten."
"Right," Danny said. "Connor, I'll come in to get you, Lynn, go and warn the others."
By the time they got up there, Lynn was looking ready to kill someone as adults pinched her cheeks over her cute hysterics. "You imbecilic halfwits!" she shouted.
"You're girl's brilliant," Danny said idly as Abby finally pushed her way past the crowd, followed by Stephen.
Lynn scampered past them, handing the pistol she'd clearly stolen from Danny if the look on his face was any indication, over to Jenny. "Mum said you're like an action hero with a gun."
Then the bloody things attacked. Stephen, as was his wont, superheroed his way about while Lynn got scooped up and carted off by Emily, much to Connor's relief. The whole thing was a mess of chaos.
Connor found himself playing evacuation director with Danny until they finally received the all-clear from Matt. They got back, greeted by Jenny saying, "Connor, can you arrange something so that Lester and officiate for me and Michael. It seems the vicar's not up to much."
"Sure," Connor said, feeling a tad guilty they hadn't been more careful and had wrecked Jenny's wedding. "I'm really sorry."
"It's alright," she told him. "At least this reminded me why I left."
"Ow!" came Matt's voice from the far side of the room. "What're . . . ow! Stop kicking me!"
"Next time, when I say there's monsters, you'd better bloody believe there's monsters!" Lynn snapped, and kicked Matt one more time for good measure. "Patronising berk."
"Lynn, don't call my superiors berks, please," Connor said. "And no threatening him with Gertrude's head."
While Emily apologised with lovely sincerity to Lynn for not believing her and Matt nursed his bruised shins, Connor collected a monitor and began hooking things up. "Connor?" Abby said.
"Yeah?" he asked, sorting through some wires for the right connector.
"I'm sorry."
"Wha - ow," he smacked his head on the table as he sat up. "What for? I'm the one who should be apologising, throwing the ring at you like that and all."
"I'm sorry I made you think I didn't really want to get married, the ring's perfect and I love it and I love you and yes, I'll marry you!"
"Really?" he asked. Wordlessly she nodded and practically tackled him, kissing him.
"Ahem," Jenny said from behind them. "Far be it from me to interfere with the course of true love and all that, but I'd rather like to be married sometime today."
"Right, right," Connor scrambled out from under Abby and went back to work.
In the background he could hear the others congratulating Abby on the engagement and Jenny cooing over the ring while Lynn bemoaned her lack of opportunity to train Ernie to deliver small packages and informed Abby that the Temple-Maitland wedding should have a reptile theme and a giant anaconda-shaped cake.
A few phone calls later and Jenny was married via Skype, and Connor was feeling irritated that he hadn't been allowed a proper setup, having been backed into standing between the pair while holding his laptop because Jenny was in too much of a hurry to let him scavenge the right parts.
When the newlywed couple began their first dance, stopping every few seconds to kiss, Lynn, plopped between Connor and Abby, said, "If you don't want to eat food someone else has spit on, why's it okay to stick your mouth into someone else's?"
Stephen, comfortably sprawled off to the side taking pictures for Sarah, said, "To use Connor's explanation, Lynn, you'll understand when you go insane with the rest of us grownups."
Sarah's tinny voice issued from the mobile at once, berating both Connor and Stephen while Emily looked flummoxed at them, Matt expressionlessly staring until he locked eyes with Lynn, who mouthed, "It's on," at him. Danny was laughing and Abby managed to snuggle into Connor and look sternly disapproving at the same time.
It was his life writ small into that moment, and Connor wouldn't have it any other way.
*************************
Emily had been duly introduced to Barbie Horse Adventures, the ongoing attempts to keep Stephen from winning at the game, Gertrude (still headless), then Gertrude's head when Burton came storming into the ARC in fine fettle because he had woken to a deinonychus head in his bed, covered in fake blood, which he had promptly blamed Becker of all people for.
"I beg your pardon?" Becker asked, looking even more staid and unmovingly military than usual.
Burton was almost frothing at the mouth. "You heard me! Whatever idiotic practical joke you've decided to pull, Captain, I will not stand for it! I-"
"Gertrude!" Abby exclaimed, interrupting the ranting billionaire. "Really, I just hope whichever of you stole her head are ashamed of yourselves! Lynn's been almost distraught!" she lied.
Danny, turning red and apparently holding his breath lest he incriminate himself, ducked down a nearby hall, followed by Stephen and Sarah. Connor took in a shaking breath and backed Abby up. "Thank you," he said. "My brother had just won the bid for this on eBay when he died. It means a lot to me."
"Well, I . . . er . . ." the dapper man said as Connor scooped the head up and headed for his locker, dumping it in the bottom.
Emily poked her head in and commented, "It's not quite accurate, is it?"
"Well, it was modelled before we knew they had feathers," Connor said. "It was pretty accurate to the science at the time in most ways."
"A little like Crystal Palace, then?" Emily asked.
"A bit," he agreed.
"Can I ask," she said, "Given that you all attempt to keep the gates -- anomalies, secret from the masses, why does Caitlyn know about them?"
He sighed. "A couple years back she got kidnapped by Leek, who used to work here. And Helen. Anyhow, that mess pretty much gave it away, not to mention the time some of my friends got curious, followed me and brought home a dodo while they were supposed to be babysitting her. So, now she knows enough that I just pretty much tell her what's going on. There's no real point in keeping the broad strokes of it a secret."
Emily nodded. "I see your point."
His mobile rang then, and Connor glanced at the display in surprise. "Lynn? Is something wrong?"
"I am breaking the school rules about mobiles to tell you that if you confirm that all the gross stuff Erin's sister just told us about blood, monthly cramping, where babies come from and why you adults get all weird about touching each other weird, I'm telling everyone your going crazy theory, because it sounds like it's completely right."
"What did Erin's sister tell you?" Connor asked, wanting to know before he said anything one way or another. He was treated to a diatribe about menstrual cycles that eventually forced him to look around, desperate, and grab the only female person nearby. "Hang on a sec, Lynn. Emily, help!"
The Victorian woman took the phone from his hand, and after a moment of fumbling to get it right, then she took over and listened to Lynn's whole story. "It's not as bad as all that," she offered when Lynn had apparently wound down. "Some women get all those, but it's only a few days, the cramping can be dealt with, with heat and I'm sure the pain reducing items are far better now." A long pause. "Yes, that's where babies come from." Another, longer, pause. "When you put it that way, it does sound a little mad, but it's quite true."
Lynn's, "Why would you do that?" came over the phone, audible even to Connor.
"It's rather fun, and if people want babies, they have to do it," Emily told her. "Your friend Erin's sister was accurate, if a tad gauche. You may want to talk to Abby about it, though." She looked at Connor, "She wants to talk to you again."
"Thanks. Lynn?"
"I'm going to tell everyone we're going to go mad when we hit thirteen," Lynn said.
"No, you're not," Connor said firmly. "Lynn, mad is relative, especially in this case. Second, most people don't see it that way and I don't want to get called in and yelled at for telling you things other people think are lies."
"Is that why Sarah yells at Stephen when he agrees with you about it?"
"Yes."
There was a pause, then Lynn said, rather doubtfully, "Okay, then. But I still think people should be warned. Because that's really, really weird."
"You'll feel different at thirteenish," Connor promised her. "Now stop breaking the mobile rules."
"Bye Dad."
He turned to Emily. "Thank you. I'm sorry, but I'd always planned on having Abby explain everything, or at least a female friend."
She gave him a wry smile. "I wish I'd had parents as willing to explain it all. I'm happy to help." Then she frowned. "That reminds me, I must ask someone about current means of coping."
Seeing Sarah coming around the corner, Connor fled, saying, "Sarah, I think Emily needs to talk to you -- well, someone female, at any rate, excuse me."
He had something to work on, anyhow. Burton had grudgingly offered him access to some of the peripheral calculations about the anomalies going on at Prospero, and he had some ideas he wanted to put into motion. One week later he had his chance to test it.
"Is that your XBox?" Stephen asked curiously as he flipped switches and ran a few diagnostics on his laptop.
"Yes," he replied.
"Lynn won't be happy about that," Becker said from his other side.
"I know that," Connor winced, imagining her shrill voice when she came back to discover she wasn't going to be able to play her latest personal fad, Lego Star Wars.
"So, what is it?" Stephen asked, nodding at Connor's invention.
"A dating calculator," Connor said absently. "I wanted to test it out. I think I messed up some, because it's sort of wavering. Telling me the Pliocene and then 1800-something."
Stephen 'hmm'ed. "Well, when you get that cleared up, it should be fairly useful."
"Burton may be a bit of a smug berk, but he's also a bit of a genius," Connor admitted. "I'm working off his calculations, after all."
And then the anomaly unlocked and a terror bird came hurtling out of it, screeching at them. "You're not too bad yourself," Stephen said as he shot at the thing. "You managed to get it within a decent range."
"Get it locked, Temple!" Becker shouted, dodging away from a lunge. The bird seemed to decide they were too much trouble as it spun around and ran back through.
Connor relocked it, only to have the bloody thing pop open again a minute later. "Damn it," he muttered. "There must be something wrong with this one. We'll need a different machine," he said, running a diagnostic even as he argued with the machine to try to keep the anomaly closed.
A familiar screeching echoed down the halls, this one from somewhere in the rest of the old prison complex. Abby's voice came out of their comms, "There's a terror bird down here!"
Stephen and Becker exchanged some sort of manly, gun-bearing psychic exchange, and Stephen was off, leaving Connor alone with Becker and a few SFs by the flickering anomaly. A moment later, though, Danny was saying, "What the hell?"
The others all returned a bit later, Abby saying, "It's like these weaker anomalies are opening up all over." She turned to Connor, "It was an anomaly, but it looked paler, and it was gone almost right after the bird went back through."
"So, it's like it was just there and gone?" Connor asked, frowning.
"It would explain about the missing tourist," Stephen said. "If it just snapped open long enough for the man to get snatched, then closed."
"What happened?" Matt asked as he came striding up to them with the locker Connor had asked for. While the others explained, Connor booted up the new one, locked the anomaly, then, "Bugger!"
"I thought you were locking it," Becker said.
"I did! It popped open with this one too," Connor protested. "There's something . . ." he trailed off as the idea struck him. "There's something wrong with this anomaly. The lockers won't work on it."
Suddenly the thing rippled, "Something's coming through!" Matt exclaimed.
Two people came through, filthy, familiar, were greeted by Matt's EMD and hit the floor unconscious. "Cutter!" Stephen shouted, racing to his friend's side. Beside him lay Clarke, looking even worse for wear than Cutter.
"Danny?" Connor said, "You have handcuffs on you? Maybe a billy club?"
"No," Danny said ruefully. "But I think we can bodge something up."
"Stephen?" Cutter said, groaning.
"Hey, Nick," Stephen grinned down at his friend. "I'm right here, and you've made it home."
"Nice to have you back, mate," Danny said cheerfully as he hastily consulted with one of the SFs. "I think Lester's missed arguing with you."
Cutter looked like . . . well, like Stephen and Connor had when they'd made it back. Filthy, ragged, tired, bearded and very relieved. "You and Connor alright?" he asked.
"We're okay," Connor told him. "Spent a year fending off that bloody spinosaurus, but we're okay. What's up with Clarke?" who hadn't regained consciousness.
Snorting, Cutter said, "If Helen's his mother he certainly didn't inherit much from her besides the nastiness."
"I hate to break this up," Matt said, "But Danny-"
"Stephen," Connor cut in.
"What?" Stephen asked.
"No," Connor said, "I mean, Matt, you were about to tell Danny to take Cutter back to the ARC, right? Send Stephen."
"Why?" Matt asked suspiciously.
Abby snorted, "Matt, just because you don't like that Danny's as much a team leader as you are, doesn't mean you get to boot him out just because you butt heads."
"Fine. Stephen," Matt said. "Ethan's on his way and we need to be ready."
Danny straightened, then as Stephen pulled Cutter to his feet and started helping the man out the door, the former policeman pulled a gun out of his jeans where it had been concealed, strode over to the two men and dropped it into Cutter's palm. "Just in case."
Matt looked about to say something, but he just shook his head disapprovingly and walked off to consult with the SFs about a perimeter and catching Ethan. A few of them separated themselves out and picked up Clarke's dead weight and carted him away. "I don't suppose you have any more, do you?" Becker asked, looking like Lynn at a pet store snake tank. Big eyes and Oliver Twist with just a dash of petulance. It wasn't a good look on him.
"You don't have one?" Danny and Stephen chorused. Then Stephen said, "And no, I'm not giving you mine."
Becker vanished down the hall after Matt, muttering about his pet shotgun.
After Connor created the feedback loop with the anomaly things suddenly moved quickly, and then it all stopped as Danny set eyes on Ethan for the first time. "Patrick?" he asked, reaching for the dark haired man. "Patrick," he breathed in relief.
"It's his brother," Abby said in disbelief.
But Connor's thought was only of one thing as Ethan or Patrick or however he thought of himself was carted off. "Matt, can you make sure they run a paternity test on Ethan and Clarke?"
"Why?" Matt asked, honestly puzzled.
"No one told you?" Connor said. "Lynn's Clarke's biological daughter, and we're pretty sure Helen slept with Patrick, because Danny's related to Lynn."
Matt blinked at him a moment. "That's . . . a tad complicated, but I'll make sure that happens."
"Thanks," Connor said, then headed back to the anomaly. He still had to figure out what was wrong with it. It was as he tried to break it down, start over from the top that he recalled Burton's equations that he'd seen. With Abby's help, he was proved right. It was two anomalies. On a hunch, he pointed his new dating doohickey (he thought it was rather catchier than his 'dating calculator', but he'd never tell anyone that was it's real name) at first one than the other. "Plioscene," he said to her. Just where the bloody turkeys were coming from. "1867," he told Abby. "Someone has to tell Emily."
They were going to tell Emily, but they were derailed by a shouting match between Burton and Cutter, who was apparently so incensed he was sounding a tad like Connor's gran as he shouted, "You daft ninny! The woman planned to wipe out all of humanity! Don't stand there and try to pretend you weren't tricked like the numpty you are!"
"Numpty?" Connor muttered to Stephen, who was watching the show, bemused.
"He must be upset to be channelling his mum," Stephen muttered back. "It's not like him at all."
"Where's Clarke? And Ethan . . . Patrick, whichever?" Connor asked.
Stephen shrugged. "There's a few rooms down the west corridor they're using."
Connor's first stop was the lab where Matt had managed to push a rush on the results, because testing for paternity was relatively uncomplicated, all things considered, and they had state of the art technology. Ethan was Clarke's father. Which meant he was Lynn's grandfather, and Connor had to talk to the man and figure out what to do about it. But first, he swung by the room they were holding Clarke in. He wanted to get in a little gloating.
Clarke was still a wreck. He was sitting in his chair, shivering, whipping around at every small sound, looking like a hunted animal. Considering what the distant past was like, that was probably an accurate state of affairs. Still, Connor was a tad disappointed. He'd thought Helen and Ethan's son would be made of sterner stuff than this. "Where's Cutter?" the man asked, eyes wide. "Is he . . . I mean . . ."
"Cutter's just having a shouting match with Philip Burton over being stupid enough to believe anything your mother says," Connor said. "Really, though, you don't seem to have enjoyed your little trip to the past."
The formerly powerful man just shuddered. "She . . . she made it sound so simple. We're from the present, we've conquered nature," he said. Connor resisted the urge to smack him just for saying the cliche alone. "Intellect conquering the savage world and all that," he continued. "But it wasn't. And when I nearly died she told me to forget about it. Forget that I was nearly eaten by a boar the size of a rhino!"
"You'll be going to prison," Connor said. "I'd think that would weigh against coming back."
Clarke shook his head. "You wouldn't say that if you'd been there," he whimpered. "Prison will be safer."
The man was broken. As he left, Connor told him, "Stephen and I were trapped in the Cretaceous for the last year. There've never been bigger land animals than during the age of dinosaurs, and the next time you're scared of a big pig, remember that we were stuck with a pack of raptors tailing us for a year. I guess you're just not all you thought you were."
Somehow, Connor rather thought that Lynn would have handled a year alone in the prehistoric past better than Clarke.
His next stop was the room they were keeping Ethan in. With him was Danny, looking desperate. "Danny, Patrick. Or do you prefer Ethan?" Connor asked. "Sorry to interrupt, Danny, but the tests came back positive. Patrick's definitely Clarke's father."
"The whinging sod in the next room?" asked the man. "How-"
"Do you remember meeting a woman named Helen Cutter?" Connor asked. "Pretty woman, loved to shove her breasts in your face if she was trying to convince you of things?"
"She did that to you?" Danny asked, amused despite himself.
"Nah, but she did it to Cutter and Stephen every time I saw her."
"I do recall something of that from the one time, yes," Danny mused.
"What about . . ." Ethan realised what that meant. "That's why she didn't come back, she was . . . but why didn't she take me with her?"
"She wasn't raising him," Connor said bluntly. "She handed him over to a family up north and visited once in a while to make sure she still had her claws in him."
That was when Danny looked like he'd had a revelation. "What did she say about me, Patrick? What did she tell you that made you think I'd ever have abandoned you? I did everything I could to find you."
"She said that you'd have gone through the anomaly after me, that . . . that it-"
"There was no anomaly to be found after you disappeared," Danny said softly. "There was just an empty house and your friend who'd made it out. For so long I thought he'd killed you."
"There wasn't a gate? There wasn't still . . . but I've seen it," Ethan said desperately. "Gates that open again and again to the same place and time, pretty much, Helen showed me-"
Connor said, just as gently, "But not the one in that house. It didn't open again until just about two years ago, and if Danny hadn't been at the right place and time to see it, he'd never have known."
"As soon as I did I quit my job and joined up here because it was my best chance at finding you. Patrick, please!"
The man seemed lost as he said slowly, "She lied. Everything was a lie. Why . . . Danny?"
"Yeah?"
And for the first time, Ethan . . . Patrick looked just bewildered and lost, shades of the confused boy who'd stumbled through an anomaly and been tricked by Helen. "How's mum?" he came out with suddenly.
As Danny began to catch his brother up on years of missed news, Connor slipped out and went to corral Lester. "Lester, about Ethan. Patrick. Whichever."
"What about him?"
"Helen had her claws in him. I'm not saying he's not done some awful things, but you may want to get a psychiatrist in to see him. He may not be as bad as he seems," Connor said. "I don't know, but just . . ." he trailed off.
"Just bloody Helen," came Cutter's voice from behind him. "Never in a million years would I have though I'd have felt such relief seeing my own wife fall over a cliff with a raptor."
Connor just shook his head and sighed. "I'm heading home. I'm going to have to tell Lynn the news and go back to trying to convince her we're not having an anaconda-shaped cake at the wedding."
"Not a horse?" Cutter called after him.
"No, she's harassing Stephen about that. She's working on convincing Sarah to have a horse-themed wedding just to see the look on Stephen's face."
Cutter hurtled off down the hall a moment later. "Stephen! Why didn't you say you were tying the knot! I thought you swore to eternal bachelorhood!"
Connor grinned to himself. He might have encouraged Lynn's suggestions of pink, pony-shaped cakes. Stephen was just so easy.
Epilogue
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