Primeval Fic: In Name Only Epilogue 9/9
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 don't really like weddings, but I love writing wedding chaos. It's a thing I have. I have also back-tagged all of these as Connor/Abby, because I hadn't really planned on it being such a large part of it, but it turned out to be, so there it is. I now proceed to fall over, because this is finally done and my brain has exploded.
*********************************
It took the better part of a year, an apocalyptic scale of crisis precipitated by Philip Burton, the organisational skills of Lester, Jenny and Lettie, intervention by Lester's wife, who had to bring all her skills as a professional diplomat to bear on the matter, a fistfight between Jack Maitland and Duncan, thirty-eight and forty-one threats of elopement apiece ("I counted!" said Lynn), far more money than they'd been expecting, but the wedding happened.
It started with the guest list. Connor plopped down on break at the ARC and started scribbling his list. "What are you writing?" Stephen asked.
"The guest list for Abby's and my wedding," Connor said. "So far it's the team . . . well, teams, Abby's berk of a brother, Lettie, Duncan, Jenny and Michael, Faith, Rick and Donnell from the tech department, you know, the only ones left from before Burton, Jess, Lester and Violet Kirkpatrick."
"What about the SFs?" Stephen pointed out. "Half of them have been here all along."
Connor hissed. "You're right. So, that's . . . two . . . fifteen . . . plus ones . . . bloody hell, that's seventy-odd people."
"You haven't even consulted with Abby yet, have you," Stephen said, amused.
Eyeing his amused friend, Connor said, "You already had this with Sarah, didn't you?"
"We both have to have all our families there," Stephen pointed out. "By the time we got finished listing off the aunts, uncles, cousins and plus ones we had an enormous wedding already, and that's without the people we actually want there."
Abby did have people to add. Former workmates from the Wellington Zoo and a few more people from the ARC who she worked with in the menagerie brought the list up to the eighties.
"I didn't even know we knew this many people," Connor complained to Lettie one afternoon.
A knock at the door interrupted. "Maryann! Charles!" Lettie said from the door. "Come in, they're just inside."
"Jake," said the parents of the original Connor's girlfriend.
"Mr. and Mrs. Walsh," he said weakly. "What's . . ." he trailed off.
"Lettie told us everything," Margaret's mum said. "I wanted to meet this little girl you went to such trouble to save."
"Hi," Lynn said, "I'm Caitlyn Rose Temple."
Mrs. Walsh knelt beside the girl and said, smiling sadly, "You know how Jake made up a history for you when he was pretending to be Connor?"
"Yes," Lynn said slowly. Her eyes were narrowed at the woman, still wondering about this.
"Well, he had to make up a mum for you too. Connor's girlfriend was our daughter," explained Mrs. Walsh. "So-"
Lynn was quick as always. "So, he said your daughter was my mum in all the stuff he made up." She turned to Lettie. "You told them?"
Lettie shrugged. "I had to. For one thing, you're still down on the books as being Margaret's daughter and I didn't want this to come back and surprise us all."
"For one thing?" asked Jake.
Mrs. Walsh was already talking to Abby. "You're the one marrying Jake?"
"Er . . . you mean . . . sorry, we all call him Connor at work," Abby said apologetically. "But, yes."
"Mum's a keeper at a private zoo," Lynn said enthusiastically. "And she's got a pet constrictor and an iguana and a draco volans."
"Really? A draco volans? How did you get that?" Mrs. Walsh asked.
Mr. Walsh rolled his eyes good naturedly. "Dear, we're visiting. Maybe you can do shop talk some other time?"
"Maryann's the head veterinarian for a small reptile-centred zoo in York," Lettie put in.
"I just do art reviews," Charles said with a shrug. "Doesn't make as much as some other things, but with Maryann's income and mine we don't need to do so much to get by."
By the end of the evening, Abby had bonded with them and they were informally invited to the wedding.
This prompted Abby to begin bothering Connor to contact his parents and try to make up with them. So, one afternoon they made their way up to his parents' place, Connor muttering imprecations and dire warnings the whole way. As they approached the small house, he braced himself as his brother came down the street towards them. "Jake!"
"Hey, Ken," he said hesitantly. He was startled when he was suddenly grabbed up into a hug, his brother's fist pounding his back.
Ken's eyes looked suspiciously bright as he pulled away. "Jesus, Jake, I can't believe it! Where the hell have you been? What've you been doing?"
"This and that," he muttered. His brother had always laughed when he'd talked about any of his hopes. He wasn't cut out to run a shop of any kind, he knew that. But even when all he'd talked about was getting a job running tech support, his brother had still laughed.
Abby's eyes were narrowed as she cut in. "Most of our work's been classified by the Home Office, but Con - Jake's done more for the technology on our project than anyone else."
For a moment, Ken's jaw gaped open gormlessly, and he felt a surge of satisfaction. Then his brother grinned widely, and said, "Seriously? You're in some top-secret government program engineering and all for them? That's brilliant! I knew you'd make a go of things!"
"Wha'?" that didn't . . . wasn't . . . "You always laughed when I talked about that," he said, the words spilling out, accusatory. "I thought . . . you always thought it was funny that I had," his voice unconsciously changed to an imitation of their father's growl, "Ambitions."
Ken looked taken aback. "No, Jake. I didn't . . . I was just amazed. You're so brilliant that I was always amazed at just how far you were going to go. You thought I was laughing at you?"
"Dad'd say whatever, that I wasn't going to make it, and you'd laugh," he said, hating the whine he could hear in his voice, hating that he wanted this validation.
"Because when it came to you and your dinosaurs and computers and what-all, Dad didn't know his head from his arse," Ken told him.
"And you said they'd be happy to see the back of you," Abby told him, shaking her head. "Not even Jack-"
He snorted, but didn't say anything else. He just turned to Ken. "How're you doing?"
"Good, good. Janice Gardner's my girlfriend again. She agreed after hitting me a dozen times and calling me a berk for being in a coma in a Middle Eastern hospital somewhere."
"Mmm. Abby did the same thing," he said affably, "Only she knew I was . . . er . . . being held in the Amazon by geurrillas."
"What!?" Ken squawked. "Bloody hell, Jake!"
Abby rolled her eyes. "It was your own fault -"
"Cutter and Stephen needed me there for technical help!"
"What happened to being technical support and all?"
"How was I supposed to be technical support staying in London?"
"Stephen says you didn't even take a gun," Abby pointed out sharply.
He sighed. "We're not having this argument again. Stephen was there, and I can't shoot and type at the same time."
Ken eyed them both even as he chivvied them the last steps to the house. "Hell. You'll have to tell me more than that," he said. "Come on. Mum's been worried to death about you. How long were you there?" As he asked, they'd come into the entrance hall to see his mum and dad in the parlour.
"Jake!" exclaimed his mother, rushing over and hugging him. "You look wonderful!" She cupped his face in her hands a moment before saying, "Now take off that hat, you're inside, it's not going to rain in the parlour."
"Dad," he said hesitantly to the stern man who sat grim-faced in an armchair by the fireplace.
"Jacob," said his father.
"I . . . er . . ." facing his dad, he didn't know what to say. The last time they'd spoken his father had all but told him never to come home again, they had their 'real' son back, they didn't need him anymore. The time before that had been when he'd transferred to Central Met to hide himself and Lynn, and he'd said all those things he'd wanted to for years about how his dad's shop was the most soul-sucking job he could imagine and that he was going to do what he wanted and the hell with what his parents thought. The fact that neither of his parents had protested in the least, that his dad had seemed satisfied to see him leave, had hurt. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "This is Abby. My fiancee."
He heard the distinct sound of Abby slapping her forehead in disbelief over his stupidity.
"Really?" said his dad, eyeing them both.
He braced himself for the scorn. "Yes, really."
"Good to know I was wrong about one thing about you," his dad said. "At least you're not a bleedin' fairy. Glad you got over that."
"Got over that?" Abby asked.
Ken sighed. "Jake was never very good at being subtle. Dad caught him with his boyfriend one time -- I mean . . . dammit - ow! Mum!"
"Watch your language," his mother snapped. "Dear-" she said placatingly to Abby.
Abby had a hand on his arm and said, "Just a moment, we need to talk quickly," she said. Then she dragged him into the hall to the sound of his dad declaring that he wouldn't blame Abby in the least for leaving Jake, and his mother remonstrating both her older son and husband for possibly wrecking Jake's engagement. "You're bi?" Abby asked quietly.
"Is that a problem?" he asked her. "Because I don't tell people 'cause they get weird and a lot of girls ran away when I told them I hadn't had a girlfriend yet, just-"
She put a finger over his lips and closed her eyes, a weird smile on her face. "Shush."
He waited, but finally he had to ask, "Abby? What are you thinking?"
"You and Becker and chocolate sauce," she said. "It's a pretty picture."
"Really?" Connor asked doubtfully. "Becker's not really my type."
"You have a type?" Abby asked. "No, we'll talk about it later, but in the meantime I'm holding onto that, because . . . oh! I have to talk to Sarah . . ."
"We have to finish talking to my family first," he said. "And this was your idea, remember."
They went back in and his mum started off by saying, "My dear, I'm sure Jake loves you if he proposed."
"I know he does," Abby said blithely. "I kept putting him off until he lost his temper. I was so sure he didn't really mean it, because he kept on asking right after something horrible happened."
"Lynn waking up from a coma was horrible?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Lynn?" Ken asked before Abby could respond.
"Our daughter," he said, before realising he should have, perhaps, eased into that more gently.
Now even more disapproving, his dad said, "So you're getting married because you got her up the duff."
"Bill!" said his mother, appalled. "In a coma? So soon after she was born? That must have been terrible."
"It was," he recalled the sight of Lynn, dead to the world in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. Then he let out a watery chuckle. "Of course, Lynn's a little older than that."
"What do you mean?" his mum asked.
"Mrs. Cosgrove-" Abby started.
"Oh, call me Trudy, dear. Short for Gertrude, but I never did like that," said his mother.
"Gertrude?" Abby turned to stare at him. "You name the raptor after your mum?"
"Er . . ."
"As amusing as that's no doubt going to be," Ken interjected, "What do you mean, Lynn's a little older than that?"
So, he told them.
"Load of bunk," his dad said when he was done. "Complete bunk. If you're going to lie, don't make up some fairy tale."
At that moment, one of those miraculous coincidences happened that you don't normally see in real life. The doorbell rang and Ken, clearly eager to get away from the very uncomfortable meeting going on, answered the door. "Grant! Great to see you, come in and break up the mess that's going on in here!"
"I have no subtlety?" muttered Connor.
Into the parlour came, "Grant?"
"Connor? Abby? What're you doing here?" asked the SF who'd been with the ARC all along. "Wait . . . I heard something . . . your real name's not Connor, it's something else. You're Ken's baby brother?"
"Yeah," Connor said, not really sure how this was going to go. "You know Ken?"
"Yeah, we went through training together, were on the same mission he went MIA from, actually." Grant grinned. "I'm just happy he made it back in the end. Bet you are too."
"Yeah," Connor said again, trying to wrap his head around the idea of his older brother knowing anyone but him from the ARC.
"You work with Jake?" Ken asked, curiously.
"He was a real mess when we first started," Grant said.
"Thanks ever so," Connor told him sourly. "So sorry uni and being on the run from Helen's son didn't give me the chance to learn how to shoot things."
Shaking his head, the SF soldier said, "You're not half bad now. All that time with Danny and Becker on the range paid off."
"Wait a damn minute!" snapped his father. "You're trying to tell me that my son, Jake there, was actually involved in some mad kidnapping plot and some top secret MI-something-or-other project?"
"Yes," Grant said bluntly. "That's why he was out of contact for a year," he added. "He and one of the other members of his team had been . . . er . . ." he glanced at Connor and Abby.
"We're allowed to give them the broad strokes," Connor said. "You know, held captive in the Amazon by some terrorist group out there." He turned to his parents. "But only to family, yeah? Just so's you have some idea why I wasn't around."
For the rest of the evening, his father sat in the corner and glared while his mother fluttered about, not really certain of what to do with them, but trying to get along with everyone. The three ARC members and Ken, however, chatted easily, sharing stories that weren't classified. When Connor and Abby left that evening, Ken walked them out to their car. "I'm glad you're alright, Jake," Ken said. "I missed you, yeah?"
"I'm sorry I was a berk," Connor started.
"No," Ken told him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I ever made you think I was laughing at you for things."
Abby smiled. "You'll have to come by and visit some time. Lynn'll be happy to meet her uncle. We'll be sending out the official wedding invitations soon, but you'll have to clear you calendar."
"I'll be there with bells on," Ken promised. He and Connor shared a manly, backslapping hug, then Connor and Abby left.
One week later Connor's mother was at their flat, flummoxing Lynn with her traditionalism and knitted jumpers, and a list of all the family members that had to be added to the wedding.
The numbers of invitees rose to about a hundred and twenty.
Stephen and Sarah vanished, leaving a general email that they'd eloped to City Hall and were spending the honeymoon on an archaeological dig in South America somewhere. Lynn noted, once her dad had stopped cursing, that this was the twenty-sixth threat he'd made of elopement, and when Abby got back from a dress fitting and saw that email, that it was Abby's thirty-third.
Abby had, several weeks before, handed the reins over Jess, who'd taken over to start, then gradually become overwhelmed by the plans, more because of Lettie and Lynn, and Connor's mum interfering, which had got Emily involved, who'd then called in Jenny for assistance in modern idiom and the whole thing had spiralled outward until Lester had asked his wife to play mediator, which she had compared to trying to make peace in the Middle East while babysitting a pack of five-year-olds and planning a birthday party for a hundred guests.
They got married at the British Museum and had a chocolate, anaconda-shaped cake stretched out all over a table, covered in caramel and chocolate patterned icing, guarded by Gertrude the raptor. This made Lynn happy, although the cake and its guard were met by less enthusiasm from Gertrude's namesake. The wedding was far bigger than either Abby or Connor had wanted, which made Connor's mum happy at being part of an event that would be talked about at home for years. Emily was quite satisfied that the seating arrangements worked out to everyone's satisfaction, and that she had learnt all the things necessary to plan for her own wedding once she worked Matt around to proposing. Jenny was delighted that they'd managed something that was quite like both Connor and Abby, and that she'd got them to hire her husband's band to play for the bulk of the evening. Stephen and Sarah took the mick at Connor and Abby, because they'd had a lot more fun getting married.
Lester's wife swore never again, and that if he tried to get her involved in any planning for anyone else that worked for him, she'd divorce him.
As Connor kissed Abby, standing in front of what felt like nearly everyone they'd ever met, he just thanked his lucky stars for Lynn, who was, after all, the reason this had all happened, in the end.
"Stop that! I want to eat the snake's head. You'll have plenty of time to snog later," Lynn declared from behind them. "And it's boring to watch."
Connor turned and scooped her up even though she was too big for it, really. "And thank you."
"You're welcome. For what?"
"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here now marrying Abby," Connor told her.
Lynn smiled and hugged him. "Thanks for rescuing me, Dad. Love you."
"Love you too, sweetheart."
"If you two don't hurry up," Abby said, "I'll bet Stephen and Sarah will start in on the cake without us."
"Good point," Lynn wriggled away. "I'm claiming the head!"
"No snake head until after dinner!" Connor called as he chased after her.
The End
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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 don't really like weddings, but I love writing wedding chaos. It's a thing I have. I have also back-tagged all of these as Connor/Abby, because I hadn't really planned on it being such a large part of it, but it turned out to be, so there it is. I now proceed to fall over, because this is finally done and my brain has exploded.
*********************************
It took the better part of a year, an apocalyptic scale of crisis precipitated by Philip Burton, the organisational skills of Lester, Jenny and Lettie, intervention by Lester's wife, who had to bring all her skills as a professional diplomat to bear on the matter, a fistfight between Jack Maitland and Duncan, thirty-eight and forty-one threats of elopement apiece ("I counted!" said Lynn), far more money than they'd been expecting, but the wedding happened.
It started with the guest list. Connor plopped down on break at the ARC and started scribbling his list. "What are you writing?" Stephen asked.
"The guest list for Abby's and my wedding," Connor said. "So far it's the team . . . well, teams, Abby's berk of a brother, Lettie, Duncan, Jenny and Michael, Faith, Rick and Donnell from the tech department, you know, the only ones left from before Burton, Jess, Lester and Violet Kirkpatrick."
"What about the SFs?" Stephen pointed out. "Half of them have been here all along."
Connor hissed. "You're right. So, that's . . . two . . . fifteen . . . plus ones . . . bloody hell, that's seventy-odd people."
"You haven't even consulted with Abby yet, have you," Stephen said, amused.
Eyeing his amused friend, Connor said, "You already had this with Sarah, didn't you?"
"We both have to have all our families there," Stephen pointed out. "By the time we got finished listing off the aunts, uncles, cousins and plus ones we had an enormous wedding already, and that's without the people we actually want there."
Abby did have people to add. Former workmates from the Wellington Zoo and a few more people from the ARC who she worked with in the menagerie brought the list up to the eighties.
"I didn't even know we knew this many people," Connor complained to Lettie one afternoon.
A knock at the door interrupted. "Maryann! Charles!" Lettie said from the door. "Come in, they're just inside."
"Jake," said the parents of the original Connor's girlfriend.
"Mr. and Mrs. Walsh," he said weakly. "What's . . ." he trailed off.
"Lettie told us everything," Margaret's mum said. "I wanted to meet this little girl you went to such trouble to save."
"Hi," Lynn said, "I'm Caitlyn Rose Temple."
Mrs. Walsh knelt beside the girl and said, smiling sadly, "You know how Jake made up a history for you when he was pretending to be Connor?"
"Yes," Lynn said slowly. Her eyes were narrowed at the woman, still wondering about this.
"Well, he had to make up a mum for you too. Connor's girlfriend was our daughter," explained Mrs. Walsh. "So-"
Lynn was quick as always. "So, he said your daughter was my mum in all the stuff he made up." She turned to Lettie. "You told them?"
Lettie shrugged. "I had to. For one thing, you're still down on the books as being Margaret's daughter and I didn't want this to come back and surprise us all."
"For one thing?" asked Jake.
Mrs. Walsh was already talking to Abby. "You're the one marrying Jake?"
"Er . . . you mean . . . sorry, we all call him Connor at work," Abby said apologetically. "But, yes."
"Mum's a keeper at a private zoo," Lynn said enthusiastically. "And she's got a pet constrictor and an iguana and a draco volans."
"Really? A draco volans? How did you get that?" Mrs. Walsh asked.
Mr. Walsh rolled his eyes good naturedly. "Dear, we're visiting. Maybe you can do shop talk some other time?"
"Maryann's the head veterinarian for a small reptile-centred zoo in York," Lettie put in.
"I just do art reviews," Charles said with a shrug. "Doesn't make as much as some other things, but with Maryann's income and mine we don't need to do so much to get by."
By the end of the evening, Abby had bonded with them and they were informally invited to the wedding.
This prompted Abby to begin bothering Connor to contact his parents and try to make up with them. So, one afternoon they made their way up to his parents' place, Connor muttering imprecations and dire warnings the whole way. As they approached the small house, he braced himself as his brother came down the street towards them. "Jake!"
"Hey, Ken," he said hesitantly. He was startled when he was suddenly grabbed up into a hug, his brother's fist pounding his back.
Ken's eyes looked suspiciously bright as he pulled away. "Jesus, Jake, I can't believe it! Where the hell have you been? What've you been doing?"
"This and that," he muttered. His brother had always laughed when he'd talked about any of his hopes. He wasn't cut out to run a shop of any kind, he knew that. But even when all he'd talked about was getting a job running tech support, his brother had still laughed.
Abby's eyes were narrowed as she cut in. "Most of our work's been classified by the Home Office, but Con - Jake's done more for the technology on our project than anyone else."
For a moment, Ken's jaw gaped open gormlessly, and he felt a surge of satisfaction. Then his brother grinned widely, and said, "Seriously? You're in some top-secret government program engineering and all for them? That's brilliant! I knew you'd make a go of things!"
"Wha'?" that didn't . . . wasn't . . . "You always laughed when I talked about that," he said, the words spilling out, accusatory. "I thought . . . you always thought it was funny that I had," his voice unconsciously changed to an imitation of their father's growl, "Ambitions."
Ken looked taken aback. "No, Jake. I didn't . . . I was just amazed. You're so brilliant that I was always amazed at just how far you were going to go. You thought I was laughing at you?"
"Dad'd say whatever, that I wasn't going to make it, and you'd laugh," he said, hating the whine he could hear in his voice, hating that he wanted this validation.
"Because when it came to you and your dinosaurs and computers and what-all, Dad didn't know his head from his arse," Ken told him.
"And you said they'd be happy to see the back of you," Abby told him, shaking her head. "Not even Jack-"
He snorted, but didn't say anything else. He just turned to Ken. "How're you doing?"
"Good, good. Janice Gardner's my girlfriend again. She agreed after hitting me a dozen times and calling me a berk for being in a coma in a Middle Eastern hospital somewhere."
"Mmm. Abby did the same thing," he said affably, "Only she knew I was . . . er . . . being held in the Amazon by geurrillas."
"What!?" Ken squawked. "Bloody hell, Jake!"
Abby rolled her eyes. "It was your own fault -"
"Cutter and Stephen needed me there for technical help!"
"What happened to being technical support and all?"
"How was I supposed to be technical support staying in London?"
"Stephen says you didn't even take a gun," Abby pointed out sharply.
He sighed. "We're not having this argument again. Stephen was there, and I can't shoot and type at the same time."
Ken eyed them both even as he chivvied them the last steps to the house. "Hell. You'll have to tell me more than that," he said. "Come on. Mum's been worried to death about you. How long were you there?" As he asked, they'd come into the entrance hall to see his mum and dad in the parlour.
"Jake!" exclaimed his mother, rushing over and hugging him. "You look wonderful!" She cupped his face in her hands a moment before saying, "Now take off that hat, you're inside, it's not going to rain in the parlour."
"Dad," he said hesitantly to the stern man who sat grim-faced in an armchair by the fireplace.
"Jacob," said his father.
"I . . . er . . ." facing his dad, he didn't know what to say. The last time they'd spoken his father had all but told him never to come home again, they had their 'real' son back, they didn't need him anymore. The time before that had been when he'd transferred to Central Met to hide himself and Lynn, and he'd said all those things he'd wanted to for years about how his dad's shop was the most soul-sucking job he could imagine and that he was going to do what he wanted and the hell with what his parents thought. The fact that neither of his parents had protested in the least, that his dad had seemed satisfied to see him leave, had hurt. He blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "This is Abby. My fiancee."
He heard the distinct sound of Abby slapping her forehead in disbelief over his stupidity.
"Really?" said his dad, eyeing them both.
He braced himself for the scorn. "Yes, really."
"Good to know I was wrong about one thing about you," his dad said. "At least you're not a bleedin' fairy. Glad you got over that."
"Got over that?" Abby asked.
Ken sighed. "Jake was never very good at being subtle. Dad caught him with his boyfriend one time -- I mean . . . dammit - ow! Mum!"
"Watch your language," his mother snapped. "Dear-" she said placatingly to Abby.
Abby had a hand on his arm and said, "Just a moment, we need to talk quickly," she said. Then she dragged him into the hall to the sound of his dad declaring that he wouldn't blame Abby in the least for leaving Jake, and his mother remonstrating both her older son and husband for possibly wrecking Jake's engagement. "You're bi?" Abby asked quietly.
"Is that a problem?" he asked her. "Because I don't tell people 'cause they get weird and a lot of girls ran away when I told them I hadn't had a girlfriend yet, just-"
She put a finger over his lips and closed her eyes, a weird smile on her face. "Shush."
He waited, but finally he had to ask, "Abby? What are you thinking?"
"You and Becker and chocolate sauce," she said. "It's a pretty picture."
"Really?" Connor asked doubtfully. "Becker's not really my type."
"You have a type?" Abby asked. "No, we'll talk about it later, but in the meantime I'm holding onto that, because . . . oh! I have to talk to Sarah . . ."
"We have to finish talking to my family first," he said. "And this was your idea, remember."
They went back in and his mum started off by saying, "My dear, I'm sure Jake loves you if he proposed."
"I know he does," Abby said blithely. "I kept putting him off until he lost his temper. I was so sure he didn't really mean it, because he kept on asking right after something horrible happened."
"Lynn waking up from a coma was horrible?" he couldn't help but ask.
"Lynn?" Ken asked before Abby could respond.
"Our daughter," he said, before realising he should have, perhaps, eased into that more gently.
Now even more disapproving, his dad said, "So you're getting married because you got her up the duff."
"Bill!" said his mother, appalled. "In a coma? So soon after she was born? That must have been terrible."
"It was," he recalled the sight of Lynn, dead to the world in a hospital bed, covered in bandages. Then he let out a watery chuckle. "Of course, Lynn's a little older than that."
"What do you mean?" his mum asked.
"Mrs. Cosgrove-" Abby started.
"Oh, call me Trudy, dear. Short for Gertrude, but I never did like that," said his mother.
"Gertrude?" Abby turned to stare at him. "You name the raptor after your mum?"
"Er . . ."
"As amusing as that's no doubt going to be," Ken interjected, "What do you mean, Lynn's a little older than that?"
So, he told them.
"Load of bunk," his dad said when he was done. "Complete bunk. If you're going to lie, don't make up some fairy tale."
At that moment, one of those miraculous coincidences happened that you don't normally see in real life. The doorbell rang and Ken, clearly eager to get away from the very uncomfortable meeting going on, answered the door. "Grant! Great to see you, come in and break up the mess that's going on in here!"
"I have no subtlety?" muttered Connor.
Into the parlour came, "Grant?"
"Connor? Abby? What're you doing here?" asked the SF who'd been with the ARC all along. "Wait . . . I heard something . . . your real name's not Connor, it's something else. You're Ken's baby brother?"
"Yeah," Connor said, not really sure how this was going to go. "You know Ken?"
"Yeah, we went through training together, were on the same mission he went MIA from, actually." Grant grinned. "I'm just happy he made it back in the end. Bet you are too."
"Yeah," Connor said again, trying to wrap his head around the idea of his older brother knowing anyone but him from the ARC.
"You work with Jake?" Ken asked, curiously.
"He was a real mess when we first started," Grant said.
"Thanks ever so," Connor told him sourly. "So sorry uni and being on the run from Helen's son didn't give me the chance to learn how to shoot things."
Shaking his head, the SF soldier said, "You're not half bad now. All that time with Danny and Becker on the range paid off."
"Wait a damn minute!" snapped his father. "You're trying to tell me that my son, Jake there, was actually involved in some mad kidnapping plot and some top secret MI-something-or-other project?"
"Yes," Grant said bluntly. "That's why he was out of contact for a year," he added. "He and one of the other members of his team had been . . . er . . ." he glanced at Connor and Abby.
"We're allowed to give them the broad strokes," Connor said. "You know, held captive in the Amazon by some terrorist group out there." He turned to his parents. "But only to family, yeah? Just so's you have some idea why I wasn't around."
For the rest of the evening, his father sat in the corner and glared while his mother fluttered about, not really certain of what to do with them, but trying to get along with everyone. The three ARC members and Ken, however, chatted easily, sharing stories that weren't classified. When Connor and Abby left that evening, Ken walked them out to their car. "I'm glad you're alright, Jake," Ken said. "I missed you, yeah?"
"I'm sorry I was a berk," Connor started.
"No," Ken told him. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I ever made you think I was laughing at you for things."
Abby smiled. "You'll have to come by and visit some time. Lynn'll be happy to meet her uncle. We'll be sending out the official wedding invitations soon, but you'll have to clear you calendar."
"I'll be there with bells on," Ken promised. He and Connor shared a manly, backslapping hug, then Connor and Abby left.
One week later Connor's mother was at their flat, flummoxing Lynn with her traditionalism and knitted jumpers, and a list of all the family members that had to be added to the wedding.
The numbers of invitees rose to about a hundred and twenty.
Stephen and Sarah vanished, leaving a general email that they'd eloped to City Hall and were spending the honeymoon on an archaeological dig in South America somewhere. Lynn noted, once her dad had stopped cursing, that this was the twenty-sixth threat he'd made of elopement, and when Abby got back from a dress fitting and saw that email, that it was Abby's thirty-third.
Abby had, several weeks before, handed the reins over Jess, who'd taken over to start, then gradually become overwhelmed by the plans, more because of Lettie and Lynn, and Connor's mum interfering, which had got Emily involved, who'd then called in Jenny for assistance in modern idiom and the whole thing had spiralled outward until Lester had asked his wife to play mediator, which she had compared to trying to make peace in the Middle East while babysitting a pack of five-year-olds and planning a birthday party for a hundred guests.
They got married at the British Museum and had a chocolate, anaconda-shaped cake stretched out all over a table, covered in caramel and chocolate patterned icing, guarded by Gertrude the raptor. This made Lynn happy, although the cake and its guard were met by less enthusiasm from Gertrude's namesake. The wedding was far bigger than either Abby or Connor had wanted, which made Connor's mum happy at being part of an event that would be talked about at home for years. Emily was quite satisfied that the seating arrangements worked out to everyone's satisfaction, and that she had learnt all the things necessary to plan for her own wedding once she worked Matt around to proposing. Jenny was delighted that they'd managed something that was quite like both Connor and Abby, and that she'd got them to hire her husband's band to play for the bulk of the evening. Stephen and Sarah took the mick at Connor and Abby, because they'd had a lot more fun getting married.
Lester's wife swore never again, and that if he tried to get her involved in any planning for anyone else that worked for him, she'd divorce him.
As Connor kissed Abby, standing in front of what felt like nearly everyone they'd ever met, he just thanked his lucky stars for Lynn, who was, after all, the reason this had all happened, in the end.
"Stop that! I want to eat the snake's head. You'll have plenty of time to snog later," Lynn declared from behind them. "And it's boring to watch."
Connor turned and scooped her up even though she was too big for it, really. "And thank you."
"You're welcome. For what?"
"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't be here now marrying Abby," Connor told her.
Lynn smiled and hugged him. "Thanks for rescuing me, Dad. Love you."
"Love you too, sweetheart."
"If you two don't hurry up," Abby said, "I'll bet Stephen and Sarah will start in on the cake without us."
"Good point," Lynn wriggled away. "I'm claiming the head!"
"No snake head until after dinner!" Connor called as he chased after her.
The End
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