Fic: Getaway

[scwlc_fic]

Title: Getaway
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: I don't own anything herein, I'm making no money off any of it and if you sue, you'll get my collection of empty biodegradable Splash Gum containers.
Rating: PG for safety's sake.
Summary: Connor recognises something familiar in Stephen, then forces an unusual sort of therapy on him.
AN: I . . . don't even know. I mean, I know where this came from, I just didn't expect it to get this long, and I'm not entirely sure I even really did what I wanted. I may have to drag this out with a sequel. Seriously, folks, you're going to have to tell me what you think, because I don't know what I think.

*****************************


Like most people, Connor had secrets and things in his past he didn't talk about with just anyone. One of those things was the fallout from his first Master's thesis and viva, the sort of thing that happens when an unwordly, child-genius teenager gets seduced by his advisor and emotionally abused into the bargain.

When Yolanda Hastings had finished with Zachary Connor Temple, he'd been drummed out of the physics-centred community, rejected by parents who were the sort of starched white churchgoers who'd refused to listen to his side of things, only caring about the immorality of what he'd done and how it reflected on them. Not knowing what else to do, he'd left and gone to another university, another faculty entirely, and had tried to have a fresh start. It was sheer luck he'd made friends with people who'd noticed how close to the edge he was and had pulled him back, kept him from doing himself permanent harm.

But it had taken four years of undergraduate work and most of his first year at his new Master's in a totally new area for him to be more or less healed from most of the emotional trauma and rejection.

It was all very close to the surface for Connor, which was why he noticed it so much in Stephen. The way Stephen had talked about Helen Cutter, his first thesis advisor, his oddly self-imposed isolation and the way he orbited Cutter as though he didn't quite know how to function without the other man, made Connor suspicious. What clinched it for him was how Stephen had acted when Helen had been dragged back from the Cretaceous era by Lester's pet soldiers.

Connor had texted Tom and Duncan at once. Because Duncan could be a wittering idiot, but given a focus was brilliant and determined, and Tom was the former psychology student who'd been the one to read Connor right and talk him down, had been the one to stage the intervention and force Connor to admit something was wrong.

"What do you need, exactly?" Tom asked right off as they met at Tom and Duncan's flat.

Connor sighed. "First, I need for you to hang around, ask some questions and such of Stephen. Because I think Helen Cutter did to him just what Yolanda did to me and I'm worried about him. I don't think he'd necessarily kill himself or something, but I don't know and the way he circles around Cutter all the time, it just . . . I don't think it's healthy."

Slowly nodding, Tom said, "You want a second opinion?"

"And if we have to, an intervention. Helen just came back on the scene, and Stephen's running around looking like a lost puppy. It's not right and it's not like him."

So, the next morning, Connor dropped by Stephen's, braced to appear even sillier than usual to the man. Mostly because he was going to pretend he honestly thought he could convince Stephen to hang out with him, Tom and Duncan. When Stephen answered the door to his flat, he outright stared, then seemed to let them in out of a sort of fatalistic fascination with what could possibly be going on.

There was nothing in there.

Well, there was a bed and a kitchen and all that, but if Connor didn't know better, he'd think Stephen had taken some sort of religious vow of poverty or simplicity or something there was so little in there. No pictures, no decoration, no hobbies, no guns on the walls, no trophies, no books no videos, nothing.

"So, I was sort of thinking that we, the team that is, should maybe get to know each other better," he said nervously. Stephen arched an eloquent eyebrow at him, speaking volumes on just how incredibly stupid the statement was. Connor ploughed onward, pretending he was thick enough not to notice. "Anyhow, I figured," he paused for half a moment, his prewritten speech deserting him and causing him to blurt out, "Since you're not in charge like Cutter is and I'm hoping to convince Abby that I'm not a complete idiot, I figured I'd start with you because you won't fire me or whatever if I humiliate myself with you."

Tom rolled his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. "You're as bad as Duncan sometimes, you know that?" he said.

"What's that mean?" Duncan complained.

Stephen watched this exchange in utter bemusement.

Tom smoothly sidled up to Stephen, who eyed him warily. "So, I don't suppose you're another one like Connor, are you?" he asked bluntly. "Conn's shown me a picture of that Helen Cutter character, she's a gorgeous bird, I'll give her that. But then, the one who nearly drove Connor to kill himself was pretty stunning herself."

"What?" Stephen asked, looking a little wildly between Tom and Connor, while Duncan wandered over and started openly digging through Stephen's fridge. It was an odd technique, but it had worked on Connor when they'd intervened. He'd been so flummoxed, and so unused to being around anyone but Yolanda, he hadn't had the faintest notion of how to respond. Stephen was equally flummoxed by it all.

Tom continued. "Oh, you know, that whole, 'I love you so much, don't you love me enough to drop everything for our . . . work,' thing?" he said casually. "Where she alternates between telling you it's not enough for her because of the work and it's not enough, because if you really loved her you'd be there all the time?"

Suddenly defensive, Stephen snapped, "Helen wasn't like that. Just because she wanted a sharper focus than I was willing to give her at the start-"

"Okay, okay, take it easy," Tom said.

Duncan trotted up to Stephen, all earnest sincerity. "Connor was just worried, you know. We didn't figure out what happened with him until he'd already slit his wrists in the bath." He handed Stephen an open beer, which Stephen took in a sort of daze.

"Connor?" he asked, staring at the most junior member of the anomaly research project.

"I was worried," Connor admitted. "The way you've reacted to Cutter's wife coming back's been a bit . . . odd." He took off the gloves he normally wore to hide the marks, slipping them into a pocket as he accepted one of the beers from Stephen's fridge that Duncan handed him. Stephen's eyes seemed fixed on the scars. He absently took a sip, then another one from the beer.

He sank down to his sofa a moment later, saying, "Connor, really, I do appreciate the concern, but I'm fine. Certainly nothing like . . . Helen may have been my advisor, but it wasn't like . . . nothing that would push me that far, I promise you." Then he suddenly blinked, "What . . .?" he slurred, and passed out, dropped the beer.

"I can't believe you drugged him," Connor said, shaking his head. "So, you think?"

Tom nodded seriously. "Look at this flat. It's like he has no life. It's all too clean, though. Not like he's never here or something. He's always here, he just doesn't seem to have anything at all. More than that, you saw how he reacted to what we said. He could have been quoting you word for word."

With Duncan playing lookout, they bundled the unconscious form of Stephen Hart down the stairs and into the back of Tom and Duncan's van. When Stephen woke up hours later, he was in the small cabin in the middle of nowhere that Tom and Duncan had staged their intervention with Connor.

**************************

Stephen woke up locked in a small room with Connor, who looked terrified. "What happened?" he asked slowly. The last thing he recalled was Connor and his friends invading his flat, apparently under the impression he was suicidal or . . . something. It was difficult to tell.

"Erm . . . we just kidnapped you," Connor said.

It was such an utterly bizarre statement that Stephen gaped a moment. "You kidnapped me?" he asked. "Why?"

"Well, when Tom and Duncan did it to me-"

"Your friends kidnapped you?" Stephen asked. This was . . . he was rather glad he didn't really have friends aside from Cutter if this was the sort of stupidity to be expected. He could recall when he'd first been at uni he'd had friends who might have done just that for a lark.

Connor seemed to steel himself, then said, "It's an intervention Stephen. Because we think you need help, and unlike me, you'd never manage to look pathetic enough for anyone to know."

"But you know," Stephen said sceptically. Clearly Connor was just completely mad. That was all there was to it.

"Then why does your flat look like a sales sample for people trying to advertise flats to rent? Why is Cutter your only friend? Why is it that when Helen Cutter's so much as mentioned you flinch?"

This was ridiculous. "This is ridiculous, Connor," he said, and discovered that they were locked into the windowless room together. Feeling trapped, he turned, trying another door. Bathroom. Another, closet. That was it. There was no way out. "Let me out."

"No," Connor said. "If you can prove that Helen Cutter didn't do anything to you, I'll let you go."

Stephen gaped again. "How the hell can I prove that? So, I don't have a lot of friends, lots of people are self-contained," Stephen said.

"You're not one of them," Connor told him definitely. "I've seen you with the SFs, you can't stop talking to them. It's like every second you spend with them you're compelled to chat."

"So I like people-"

"Directly contradictory with your self-contained theory," Connor pointed out. "If you're so gregarious, then you're not all self-contained."

"People can't be put in boxes like that, Connor," Stephen told him, exasperated. "I don't want to belittle any experiences you had, but are you sure you're not projecting how you felt at a low point onto me?"

Connor shrugged. "Maybe, but that's why I asked Tom and Duncan along. They helped me before. Locked me up in this very room, actually."

"Did they?" Stephen said. If it weren't so utterly disturbing, this situation, the insight into Connor would be fascinating.

"Yeah. Of course, they didn't know at the time that I'd been arrested half a dozen times back home for breaking and entering. I got out right quick. But we're a million miles from civilisation, so it wasn't hard at all for them to catch me."

"You didn't steal the car?" Stephen asked dryly.

"They'd already taken out all the bits to let it run," Connor told him. "So I'd also wasted precious minutes trying to hotwire it." Looking Stephen up and down, Connor said, "There's actually a lot of things in here to escape with, so I expect that, if you can manage that, we'd never catch you before you made it home."

He looked around, but couldn't see anything that would serve as a functional means of getting out of the room. "Connor, what could I possibly say to convince you that I don't need an intervention, before this gets ugly?"

"When Tom asked if you were like me, if Helen Cutter had been like Yolanda-"

"Yolanda?" Stephen interrupted.

"My first Master's advisor," Connor explained.

Stephen looked sceptically at him. "Your first Master's? What, an undergraduate Master's?"

"No, I had an MSc by the time I was twenty," Connor said. "Combined thing in physics and engineering." He got up from the chair he'd been in and joined Stephen on the bed. "Child prodigy and all that. I'd done my first round of undergrad work long before I came to Met Central. I was naive enough, stupid enough to think that my incredibly hot and young advisor was actually just waiting for me to reach my majority, then she'd leave her husband."

Helen had promised him that once he'd got his degree, she'd leave Nick for him.

"So, if you want to convince me that Helen's not like Yolanda, you prove to me that she didn't catch you on weekends, after you'd been out with your mates for a football match or a party, tell you that she thought the work was important to you, and that if it was, you wouldn't have been out," Connor's eyes were sincere and dark as he told Stephen his conditions, what Stephen had to convince him of. "Convince me she never responded to you rebutting that by fluttering her eyelashes and saying, 'Oh, I thought I was more important to you than that.'"

Helen would never flutter her eyelashes, wasn't that sort of girly person, but she knew how to lower her voice and widen her eyes, take on a croon that gave him butterflies in his stomach and look hurt enough to make him feel guilty when he took more time off than she thought was . . . than was warranted, dammit. "It isn't the same thing," Stephen said. "Alright, yes, I had an affair with her, and I hope you won't tell Cutter, because he should hear it from me, if at all, but I was an adult, and I wouldn't be half the tracker I am today if Helen hadn't pushed me to excel."

"She ever suggest it was easier not to have to hire a guide out to places?" Connor asked, sounding rather sardonic.

"How did you -- she wasn't using me!" he snapped. "We loved --"

Connor's rebuttel interrupted before he could even finish protesting. "Then if she's so comfortable travelling through time all on her own, has clearly been back a few times, why the hell didn't she come back for you?"

The same question Nick had asked himself, that he'd asked himself, and one he had no answer to. "I . . . she must have had a reason."

That was weak, and he knew it. Connor patted his hand sympathetically. "I'm going to get Tom. He's the real expert at this. And hey, if you convince him, he'll let you go, you know. I just . . . you haven't convinced me yet."

He hadn't even convinced himself with that one, which sort of threw him, and he didn't even think of lunging at the door as Connor slipped out, Tom slipped in, and the lock clicked into place behind him.

"So, I'm really sorry about the whole kidnapping thing, but we just needed to be sure that you wouldn't go sprinting off."

Tom was redheaded, nervous and exuded the same sort of underlying twitchiness as Connor. He also had that same hidden sharpness that could come snapping out the moment you let your guard down, thinking he wasn't smart enough to understand. "Connor seemed to indicate that if I convinced you that Helen's not some sort of . . . black widow spider, that you'd declare me free to leave," Stephen said, as dryly as he could.

"And I will. Conn's hardly the most reasonable person when it comes to feelings, but I could hardly discount him when he got concerned. Duncan and I had to deal with him at his lowest point, and I'd hate to have to help him through seeing you hit that point. You understand this is just to be sure," Tom said.

The subtext was all too clear. "You don't believe me."

"You sound just like Conn did when he wanted to know what he'd done so wrong that would make the love of his life throw him away like a live grenade," Tom informed him. "That's why I have trouble believing you." Then a sad smile quirked the side of his mouth. "That, and the fact that, even now, you're not ranting and raving, you're doing what you're told." He looked Stephen up and down. "Someone's got you very well trained not to go against orders."

"I fight with Nick all the time, and if you're so damned convinced I'm submissive or some such nonsense as that, why the hell would I butt heads with him?" Stephen demanded, irked that Tom was right that he hadn't even put up any sort of struggle. Of course, he didn't want to harm these well-intentioned idiots, but why hadn't he tried to get out yet? None of them could physically stop him. He started to pace, because moving helped him think, always had.

"And how many of those times do you not have someone else's authority behind you?" Tom said pointedly.

Stephen whipped around, his mouth opening to answer back . . . and couldn't think of an answer. When they were arguing theory? No, he'd always had other people's papers to back him up. And not for the purely factual, but to support him on the theoretical level. He'd always synthesised his perspective from others' theories, not come up with his own theories based solely in the facts. On expeditions he'd take the side of a guide against Nick or Helen, but had he ever objected on his own first? When it came to teaching and classes, he'd buck Nick, but only insofar as the university's policy would back him.

He'd fought Claudia about going underground alone, but that was because of Nick. Hell, when he and Connor had been tracking the gorgonopsid, he'd listened to Connor, even though he'd been utterly certain Connor was too gormless an idiot to contribute. Lucky he had, because he'd been wrong about Connor's utter uselessness, but . . .

"Just because I prefer not to butt heads without supporting evidence or authority doesn't mean I've been 'trained' as you put it, to give in to everyone," he half snarled. This was ridiculous. They were wrong about him. "Just because neither Helen nor Nick ever listen to anyone but themselves doesn't mean they've got me trained."

He'd neither intended to say that, nor was he even aware of how it sounded until it was past his lips.

"But you don't fight them anymore, do you?" Tom asked.

At that point, Stephen just decided he'd try to wait them all out. How long could they keep this up for? Eventually they'd let him go, save everyone a lot of trouble and running around. It only took a few more questions from Tom and no response from Stephen for the other to cotton on. "You trying the silent treatment and hoping we'll give up?" Tom asked.

Stephen just gave him a look that said, What do you think?

This time, when the door opened, Stephen lunged, and almost made it out. He was stopped in his tracks by the sight of a raptor, and it wasn't until he checked at the door that he realised it was a replica, not the real thing, and then it was too late and the third member of their little trio, Duncan, had skittered inside, and the door was shut again. He pounded a fist on the door and shouted, "That was a bloody dirty trick, Connor!"

"Worked, didn't it?" came the cheeky reply. Which was quite true. These days, knowing that anything from an Irish elk to a t-rex to giant bugs could come out of bloody nowhere had left Stephen rather oversensitive to the possibilities of scales and sharp teeth. He heard something that sounded like, "How did you know that would work?"

"Sorry," Connor said, sounding not at all sorry. "That's classified."

With a sigh of exasperation, he turned and took the chair, leaving the last one to gingerly sit on the bed facing him. Stephen just watched this one, who rather looked like a mouse faced with a snake. Then he took a deep breath and began to prattle.

After one minute, Stephen wondered what the point was. Five minutes he was confused. Ten minutes in and he was wondering how long one person could talk about this Sailor Moon thing for. A half an hour later he was just wondering when it would be over. He couldn't think, couldn't block out the sound, and eventually he cracked and spoke in pure self-defense. "Why the hell are you telling me this?"

Duncan grinned. "Oh, Tom sent me in to crack you, like I did Connor."

"You did this to Connor?" Stephen asked, vaguely horrified at the thought.

Duncan nodded, still amused. Then he sobered. "Yeah. Well, we had to get him talking again, right? He was sitting there, claiming he didn't have a problem while he still had bandages all over his wrists from where he'd slit them."

"Did he ever say why?" Stephen asked, thinking that understanding Connor might get him an understanding of what Connor thought he saw in Stephen, which might get him out of this.

"You'd have to ask him, mate," Duncan told him. "It's not really my place to say anything."

"So, now what?" he asked.

Duncan settled down on the bed a bit and said. "Well, you could tell me about Helen Cutter."

"Helen is none of your damn business," he snapped.

"So, we got to talking about fiction and archetypes and all that and it became pretty clear that there's a lot of interconnectedness between Sailor Moon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I mean, think about the fact that they're both blondes, pretty hot, in high school, have superpowers thrust at them and they're both really shallow and obsessed with girly things and shopping and all. You can find parallels between the two shows for almost everyone, even if the Luna and Artemis characters are reversed in gender in Buffy-"

"Alright!" Stephen said hastily. He really didn't want to know about Buffy and how you could parallel that with the apparent tragedy that was Serena and Darien . . . he shook that thought off. So, just to keep Duncan from talking, he spoke about Helen. "I remember when I first met her, the first thing I thought was that she was beautiful," he laughed a little, "Really sexy. The next thing I thought, after we spoke, was that she was sharp and brilliant."

"She is pretty hot," Duncan agreed. "In that picture Conn showed us. She's as smart as she is hot? That's pretty cool."

"When I started working on my thesis and viva, she was really demanding. Wanted perfection out of me and had this way of just looking at me, and I'd know how disappointed she was. It did amazing things for how well I was able to work and think, put together an idea and support an argument."

"You liked her, though?" Duncan asked curiously. "Because I had one or two professors who'd do that sort of thing, and they can be right nasty."

"Well, she wasn't," Stephen informed him. "I was half in love with her after a few months. It was amazing when she said she felt the same way. Helen started to bring me along on a few expeditions that I never would have come with her on, because she wanted me there, instead of covering her classes for her the way lots of other professors might."

Duncan nodded. "Very cool," he said. "So, that all sounds pretty awesome."

"Yeah," Stephen said. In spite of the whole situation, he had to admit, he was rather enjoying having a chance to talk about Helen, openly, without worrying about what anyone would say. For one thing, none of this could get out, because really, no one would believe any part of this story. "I knew I loved her then. Brilliant, gorgeous, so much in common with each other . . ." he trailed off.

"Wow," Duncan said, all sort of gormless admiration. "Finding someone who isn't just interested in all the same stuff intellectually, but your sense of humour and your other interests and all, that's pretty neat."

Well, at least one of them believed him. Of course, Helen had never really been much of a fan of classic rock and roll, preferring the showy hair bands from the 80s over the Beatles and Stones that Stephen had preferred. Not to mention that he had a collection of jazz that Helen thought dull. And where he enjoyed the art and craft of tracking itself, Helen had always had that slight dismissive air that it was an means to an end. And the way she seemed to prefer the harder edge of the mockery comedians who'd pick someone from the audience to pieces over sketch comedy and Blackadder had meant they'd been at odds a lot on the few times they'd relaxed together. Most of the time, that had tended to force them to revert to work again, just to have something to talk . . .

Damn Connor and his friends for making him think this. He felt his lips press together in annoyance. No relationship was perfect, and to doubt the strength of his affection for Helen or vice versa was stupid.

And a small voice reminded him that part of what made his friendship with Nick work was that all those things he'd not had in common with Helen, he'd had in common with Nick.

"Any other questions?" he asked Duncan, desperate for a distraction from his internal monologue. Being trapped in this room was going to make him barmy.

Duncan nodded. "Yeah, you want me to get the others in here with the pizza and videos?"

Stephen just stared, which Duncan seemed to take as a yes. Connor and Tom were in a moment later with pizza, beer, a collection of DVDs and a bag of toiletries and clothing for Stephen.

When he'd been younger, before his Master's, before Helen, he'd rather liked Doctor Who. He'd completely lost track of things, and the discovery that there was a whole new series that he'd missed because he'd been out with Cutter and had almost entirely stopped watching television or reading anything in the papers but purely political and environmental news, that information had him popping the disc into the player without consulting anyone. He quickly became engrossed and found himself drawn into a lengthy discussion with the others in comparing Eccleston with the previous Doctors.

"Of course, Tennant's really got the biggest following, I think," Connor said, companionably sprawled next to Stephen.

"Tennant?" Stephen said, frowning.

"Oh, he's number ten," Connor said. "But I'm getting ahead of the show. How've you missed this anyhow?" he asked.

Absently, Stephen said, "Helen pointed out how much of a waste of time television really is. I mean, it's not like I've really missed so much . . ." he stopped, because there was a whole passel of guns pointed at the Doctor and then the lift opened and the quip was just perfect.

"You've not missed much except the chance to see it with everyone else and talk with other people about it," Connor said pointedly. "Some of the value just lies in having things to talk about with anyone." Then he turned back to the show with a quip to Tom and Duncan about something he'd seen on Battlestar Galactica as a contrast and it was too late for Stephen to reply.

The four of them fell asleep like the first years undergrads none of them were anymore, the telly's light flickering over them, too much beer and pizza creating a sleepy companionable contentment he hadn't felt except in short bursts with Cutter over the last nine years. He woke up first the next morning, discovering he was up before the other three, who were sprawled out awkwardly everywhere. With a grin, he collected the shaving cream, squirting it on both left and right hands of all three of them, before taking over the small bathroom for a shower, just wishing he could go for a run.

He was just pulling on a fresh shirt in the bathroom when the squawks of dismay reached him. He stepped out, and Tom rushed past him, flinging himself at the toilet. "I told him he couldn't handle the last beer," Duncan said, shaking his head at Tom. "Lightweight!" he called.

Tom's hand rose in a rude gesture that, although not specifically aimed at Duncan, was clearly meant for him.

Connor had peeled himself out of his t-shirt, waistcoat and vest, making a face at the wet spot on it. "Duncan, did you dribble all over my shirt?" he asked.

As Duncan vociferously denied it and wiped at his mouth at the same time, Stephen found himself laughing. Not just a quick chuckle, not a bit of grimly ironic amusement or appreciation of cleverness, but true laughter. How long had it been since he'd laughed like that with anyone but Cutter? How often with Cutter? The answers were, too long, and not often at all. The smile faded from his face, and he found himself struggling not to start pacing, to try to stave off the sudden onset of claustrophobia.

"You alright?" Duncan asked abruptly. "You're looking a little . . ." he trailed off and gestured.

He shook his head. "Just wanting to go on my morning run," Stephen said.

Connor was in the bathroom, muttering about Duncan, sponges and drool, his shirt and waistcoat in the sink running water over them, and Stephen absently noted that, contrary to any expectations he might have had, Connor actually seemed oddly fit for someone who complained about asthma and allergies and what-all. Duncan followed his glance. "When Conn's finished accusing me of being the cause of everything wrong in his life, he'll head out for his run. I'm sure he won't mind if you go with."

"Won't mind what?" Connor asked.

"If Stephen goes running with you," Duncan said. "Where's the keys?"

"In Tom's trouser pocket," Connor replied. "Budge over." He picked up hairpin from the dresser, jiggled it in the lock for a moment and opened the door. Stephen found himself practically bolting for the exit, standing in front of the large cabin, and realising that, wherever they were, it was a pretty fair distance from London.

Connor was outside a moment later, putting on trainers and saying apologetically, "If I'd known about this ahead of time, I'd've grabbed a pair. You still want to go?"

The van was right there.

Connor followed his glance. "Tom's hidden the spark plugs and things."

And suddenly, Stephen didn't want to leave. Because he hadn't had a true holiday in years. Not one where no one asked him a single question about animals, evolution, science, tracking, shooting or anything he did daily. Was it so awful to want some time away? He could strike out, get away and Connor and his friends wouldn't be able to keep up or follow, but they weren't malicious about any of this, and God knew he could use a holiday from Lester alone.

"You have a particular trail you follow?" he asked.

"This way," Connor gestured with his head, setting off at a comfortable jogging pace. It was a little slower than Stephen normally ran, but after a minute or two Connor settled in and began to speed up to a steady run. Soon they were easily pounding down a trail side by side. He was a little slower than usual by a small amount, but that seemed more due to the fact that Connor, being a few inches shorter, simply didn't have a top speed the same as Stephen's when he wasn't actually putting himself out to go fast.

It was nice, having company on the run, and he found himself chatting with Connor, the talk ranging from Doctor Who to football to Harry Potter, which Connor said he should read, if only so that he'd have some notion about this book that had swept over the world of children's literature.

They came back to the cabin to see Tom looking rather green and Duncan cheerfully eating something that looked greasy and delicious and Stephen wondered if he'd spend so much time of the last nine years maintaining perfect fitness but for the beers, that he might have missed out on something. A few grilled cheese sandwiches, crisps and beers later, Duncan had driven off with poor Tom, who was looking absolutely dreadful, leaving Connor and Stephen alone at the cabin.

With the car gone, Stephen was suddenly reminded of why he was there again, and suddenly found himself blurting out at Connor, "What happened with you and this Yolanda?"

Connor shot him a sideways look, but answered. "I mentioned the whole child prodigy bit, didn't I?"

Stephen nodded. "You did. So, you'd already completed your degrees before you wound up Cutter's student?"

"I was doing my Masters in physics and engineering, sort of a combined thing, when I was eighteen," Connor said. "I was at Leeds, and Yolanda Harper wound up my advisor. She was effing gorgeous," he declared. "Like Hollywood star looks. Angelina Jolie or something, yeah?"

"Really?" Stephen said, feeling obliged to comment, but not sure of what to say.

"Really. I was young and stupid," Connor said. "So, when she kissed me in the lab, I actually thought it meant something. And then she started telling me that I needed to focus more. I'd spend a Saturday at a con or with friends, and come home to messages stacked up asking me where I was and if I really didn't want to get the degree, didn't want to really excel." His mouth quirked. "Then we slept together that first time. She had me by the balls," he said with a crudity that startled Stephen, mainly because it was Connor saying it. "She'd come round to the residence I was at, wake me up and snog with me a bit until I was out of my mind, then just run off, saying it was too late and we had to go."

That brought back some painful memories. Helen slipping into his flat with the key she'd guilted him into giving her, and he remembered some rather painful trips into the lab, aching and barely able to think of anything but getting her alone. The words slipped out without him realising it. "And all day it'd be lab work and her looking so bloody hot that you'd do whatever she said just to keep on her good side for later."

"I couldn't get my head straight," Connor went on, as though Stephen hadn't spoken, as though he hadn't noticed, though Stephen was sure he had. "And I was naive enough that when I could think clearly, I believed her when she'd tell me she just wanted me to get past twenty, get the degree so that no one could say anything." He shot Stephen a significant look. "That she'd leave her husband then. That Eric Harper was just as uninterested as she was, and they were just too busy to get around to the real details."

Stephen was silent at this. Mainly because everything Connor said was so familiar. It was getting harder to believe that Helen was just trying to help, and he was remembering other things, like friends who had wanted to know why he never had time for anything but work and his older brother that he'd pushed away because Richard had wanted him to visit at Christmas and he'd been too busy trying to reach some pinnacle of physical fitness for Helen to stop.

"I'd just finished my viva," Connor said, now looking a tad haunted. "There's a few journals that are specialised in terms of what I'd been doing and I'd got myself a write-up in one. It was short, but it's one of those real coups when you're just starting out. I rushed over to Yolanda, I was so eager to show her. I was sure she'd be all proud, I mean, it's what I'd been working for, yeah?"

"What happened?"

"She was angry. Angry that I hadn't done more to help her with her own work. But mostly, that I'd showed up without her calling me first, because she was with her husband. Who'd had no thought of leaving her." Connor let out a bitter laugh. "I know you probably think I'm terrible with women, but there must be something, because she'd managed to convince everyone that I'd seduced her. It was all over Leeds, all over the engineering community and the fringes of the physics community. Because so much of my work was hers."

Stephen's breath hissed as he took a sharp breath in. Because Helen had appropriated some of his ideas, soothing away his worries with the point that he was just a student and would never get published under his own name, but she had the cache to get it out, and wasn't the work more important than the credit? And he remembered Cutter, gutted at his beloved wife's disappearance and suddenly having nothing and no one because Helen had convinced him that he didn't need anyone but her. That there was no one but her. Because quite suddenly there wasn't, and all he'd done was exchange one Cutter's control for another. Nick was his friend, but the way he'd let the man walk all over him all those years, just because he'd lost the ability to get along without someone telling him what to do, it wasn't . . . it just had to stop.

"Connor?"

Connor shook himself out of the memories. "Yeah?"

"Thank you," Stephen said. "For the talking to, for bothering to do this, the holiday . . . but not the drugging."

The student, possibly a friend, something he hadn't had in so long he'd quite forgotten what it was like, smiled at him. "You're welcome," he said. He reached into a pocket. "Here's your mobile. I'd hacked it and put it on silent, but I'll bet Cutter's been wondering where you are."

Indeed, just as he reset the phone to its usual ring, it went off, telling him there were a dozen messages waiting on his voicemail. The sound of a vehicle coming to a stop outside the cabin was almost obscured as his and Connor's mobiles rang simultaneously. "Hello?"

"Stephen? Where the hell've you been?" Nick demanded.

"It's a long story," he replied. "Cut-"

"Well, nevermind that," Cutter said, "Helen's started talking, and she claims that a sabre-toothed tiger's about to come through an anomaly." He gave the address of the stadium it was at.

"I'm a ways out, Nick, but we'll get there as fast as we can," he said.

"We?" Nick said, sounding startled.

Connor grabbed what was clearly his bag, and Stephen hastened to collect the one that had the things from his flat Connor and his friends had pilfered. They were met at the door by a much-less-green-looking Tom, and Duncan. Connor pushed past them, saying, "Get in, or wait here and I'll come back and pick you two up. Stephen and I have to get back, now."

"What?" Tom was demanding. "Is this about that stupid animal stuff you told us about?"

"Something like that," Stephen told them as he hopped into the van.

He saw Connor steal the keys and take the driver's seat. "Okay, I'll be back in a while, then. I still haven't forgiven you both for that, you know," he said, and then they were on their way.

They made it back, passed the rather bemused-looking SFs, who stared at the incongruity of Stephen and Connor arriving in the same silly-looking van together, and joined Cutter in the stadium's kitchen. There was a momentary pang when he saw her again, but time and Connor had changed his perspective. He chose to studiously ignore her, promising himself he'd talk to Nick as soon as possible, and instead distracted Connor from making an idiot of himself with the funhouse mirror effect of the ladle by starting a conversation about the Doctor Who marathon they'd watched.

Later that day, after the drama with the dodo's parasite, Stephen found himself pulled aside by Nick, who demanded. "Now, are you going to tell me where the hell you were?"

"I doubt you'll believe me," he said, "But Connor and two of his friends drugged me, kidnapped me to a cabin about an hour out of London, then tried to give me therapy."

Nick just stared. "What?" he said. "I don't . . . what?"

"I assume you're both done?" Claudia asked, arriving on the scene. "Cutter?"

"How? Why?" he asked, ignoring her.

Stephen shrugged. "I really wasn't expecting them to drug my beer, and as to the rest, they were, oddly, right." Suddenly his mobile rang. "Hello?" he asked, turning slightly away from Nick, who looked on the verge of apoplexy.

"Hey, Stephen," Connor said, sounding a tad odder than usual. "There's been a sort of an issue with my flat, and-"

"What sort of issue?" he asked.

As Connor spoke, he could almost hear the wince. "There's an infestation, I didn't really ask of what, and they're sort of throwing everyone out. Anyhow, Tom and Duncan aren't too happy with me for running off with the van, even if I did come back for them, so I sort of don't have anywhere to crash at the moment."

"You can stay over until you find something else," Stephen told him, "But if I see Duncan anywhere around there, you're both out on your arses."

"Thank you!" Connor said happily. "I'll see you there."

"Now what?" Nick asked suspiciously.

"Connor's going to be sleeping on my couch, it seems," Stephen said.

Nick looked like he did when he was trying to understand women, something that tended to make him look rather like one of the Gumbys. "You were right before. I'm having a lot of trouble believing he drugged and kidnapped you."

"What?" Claudia asked, looking as baffled as Nick.

"You don't have to," Stephen said. "Now, I'd better get going before I find out Connor's broken into my flat and put Leela posters up on all the walls."

And walking away from Nick, just for an afternoon, just to do something that had nothing to do with either of the Cutters, it felt brilliant and right.

Return to Primeval Archive