Primeval WIP: Revealing (44/...)
Title: Revealing (44/...)
Author: TalliW
Pairings: Jenny Lewis, Stephen/Lyle, Abby/Connor, Lester/Cutter
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Primeval is the property of Impossible Pictures. I write just for fun.
Lyle belongs to Fredbassett.
Acknowledgments: Thanks to Fredbassett for beta-reading. I couldn't have done it without you.
Jetrow stepped into the living room and looked curiously around. The flat was just like Jenny's, practical, no nonsense but with a slight female touch.
"Do you really think you can stand to live with me for a while?" he asked with a smirk.
"As long as you stay a nice chap and sleep in the bed in the spare room I don't see any problem. Are you sure that will lure him out of his hiding place?"
"Stalkers are usually very possessive. Whoever it is will go bonkers seeing me here and will draw the wrong conclusions."
"Mmmh. I know we have to do this but if I'm honest I don't want it to stop. In a weird kind of way it's even flattering. My own personal stalker. Does that sound very crazy?"
"Definitely. Crazy and dangerous. Jenny, usually this type of person isn't Prince Charming."
"I know," Jenny sighed. "But the things he's done until now haven't been threatening. Rather the exact opposite. It was nice. Flowers, music, secret messages on my mobile. Everything a girl dreams of."
"Can it be that you've a slightly screwed perspective on the world, Jenny? You know it doesn't have to be a man who's stalking you."
"What?" she asked irrited.
"Oh. I just thought all that sneaking around and the secret messages... reminds me of Helen. Perhaps she's fallen for you and is your secret admirer?"
Jenny grimaced at the thought of Helen stalking her. "I think I will go to bed now," she announced. "Good night!"
"Or it could be Oliver Leek. He has always danced attendance on you when he wasn't busy bootlicking Lester. I'm sure he has the hots for you."
The soldier grinned as Jenny's bedroom door fell shut with a bang.
The sun teased Nick's eyes and he cursed in annoyance. He hadn't slept well last night. Just when he thought everything was going to be all right new problems arose.
Of course he knew his fears were mostly unfounded. Just because someone had hacked into the ARC's computer system didn't mean this person was going to kill James.
But the nightmare had been too vivid and he wasn't be able to get back to sleep again afterwards. Not even James' shirts had helped to calm him down. So he had lain awake for the rest of the night and had busied himself with Connor's theory and the project in the making.
Jenny looked at the gift on her doorstep, not sure if it was a wise decision to pick it up. She considered waiting for Jetrow, who had forgotten something in the spare room and had gone back to retrieve it, when her mobile rang.
"It's not a bomb or anything nasty," the voice said.
Jenny furrowed her brows. She knew that voice, she had heard it only recently. "Thomas?" she asked tentatively.
"Yes, it's me. My sincere apologies for disturbing you and your boyfriend. That was not my intention."
"We are not... He's just a friend." Jenny answered.
That was the moment Jetrow stepped behind her and snatched the mobile out of her hand.
"Listen to me, you damned bastard. If you ever bother Jenny again I will hunt you down and hang you up by your balls. Do I make myself clear?" Jetrow snarled into the mobile and then cut the call.
"You didn't have the right to interrupt my call," Jenny bristled at the soldier. Angrily, she bent down, grasped the gift and marched back into the flat before Jetrow could stop her.
Jetrow hurried, annoyed, after Jenny. He hadn't expected such a sensible woman would suddenly react so irrationally.
Jenny stood in the living room and was about to open the gift. Jetrow rushed over to her and took hold of her hands before she could pull at the ribbon.
"It could be dangerous. The experts should take a look first."
"He said it's not dangerous."
"And you believe what a creep like him tells you on the phone?"
Jenny wrenched her hands from the soldier's grip. "He isn't a creep. Thomas is a nice young man. A very nice man with a beautiful smile."
"You should listen to yourself. You sound like a dewy-eyed teenager."
"I'm a grown-up woman and can take care of myself. I think it was a bad idea to invite you here. If you would excuse me, I have a gift to open."
"I give up. My father was right. Woman are irrational creatures with a pea for a brain."
"Now you sound like an arse," Jenny hissed.
"Bloody hell. Jenny, don't you see I only trying to protect you. If you really are so desperate for a man I can help you out."
Jetrow withered under the fury in Jenny's eyes.
"Thanks for the offer but you are not my type," Jenny replied tersely and Jetrow could see how angry and hurt she was by his words.
He ran his fingers through his hair in distress. "God, Jenny, I'm sorry. You must think I'm the worst sort of sexiest pig. My father was one and I've vowed to myself never to became like him. And look how I behaved myself just now. I didn't mean what stumbled out of my mouth. My brain must have shut down completely. I'm just worried about you. Are you absolutely sure the guy has spoken the truth?"
Jenny glanced at her friend who looked contritely to the floor, his eyes filled with sincere remorse and sighed.
"Jetrow, in my line of work I have to have insight into human nature. Usually I'm fairly good at recognising when someone is lying. I met Thomas at the school with the Anomaly where the Baryonyx turned up and he was a decent nice man. He's harmless.
OK, perhaps harmless isn't the right word," Jenny carried on as Jetrow faintly raised his eyebrows. "He's a little weird but I don't hold that against him. Weird people have their charms and life with them certainly is never dull."
Jenny blushed as Jetrow started to chuckle. "Now I know why you get along with the people at the ARC so well. Seems you have a foible for crazy scientists and geeks. Were you falling for the class geek in school as well?"
"I have also a foible for weird soldiers who behave like an arse when they are worried," Jenny replied smirking. "And I didn't just fall for the class geek. I was dating him for three years. Just trust me with this. I know what I'm doing."
"OK. Go ahead. Open your gift."
Jenny pulled at the ribbon an opened the lid of the box...
"Fuck!" Stephen groaned as his aching muscles complained against his stretching.
"Not again. I'm not a machine," Jon Lyle mumbled and sat up on the bed.
"Ha, and that from the man who kept going the whole night. I don't think I can sit down today. I need a break."
"From work or from me?
"Just from the sex. My arse is on fire right now."
"Come here and I will kiss it better," Lyle smirked.
"I mean it, Jon. We don't have to fuck like bunnies every night. If we're trying to built a relationship it should be based on more than just sex."
Lyle rolled over to Stephen and caressed his cheek. "I thought you enjoyed the sex. You know I can't get enough of you. But when it gets too much you only have to tell me and I will stop."
Stephen bit his lips. "I enjoyed it but at the end I started to feel like we were taking part in a sex marathon. Jon, you don't have to prove anything to me."
"You are right. We should slack off. How about we watch a DVD tonight and just make out a little on the couch?"
"Sounds like a plan."
"All right. Now who's going to make the breakfast?"
"My flat, my rules." Stephen grinned as Jon rolled his eyes in annoyance.
"Hey, is everything all right?"
Jetrow looked at the woman who had smiled before tears had welled up in her eyes and who was now weeping freely.
"It's just... this... no one... How?" Jenny struggled to get her emotions under control but still wasn't coherent enough to give Jetrow a sensible anwser.
The soldier started dumbfounded at the content of the box - three books and a CD and didn't understand what all the fuss was about.
"They are mine," Jenny explained finally, followed by a hiccup.
"He's stolen them and when he gives them back you are happy?" Jerow asked confused.
Jenny laughed out loud and tried to say something but was stopped by another hiccup.
Jetrow shook his head when Jenny hurried out of the room. At least his father had been right about something: Women would always remain a mystery and men wouldn't understand them in a thousand years.
With her makeup firmly in place again, covering all evidence of her emotional outburst, Jenny Lewis walked back into the living room some minutes later.
Composed, she started to explain: "The books and the CD vanished at the same time my ex-fiance moved out. I suspected he had taken them as some sort of childish revenge for me breaking up with him. The books have more personal worth but the CD is quite rare. I don't know how Thomas got his hands on it but that is probably the best gift I've ever had."
"About what I said earlier. I didn't imply you need..." Jetrow said. "I meant I know some nice men who would be delighted to go on a date with you. But I think after that gift every attempt to hook you up with someone is going to fail."
"And the nice men are probably all soldiers. No thanks. My father was in the services and I've heard enough about the importance of the military to last me a lifetime. I'm looking for a nice man I can share my life with. I don't want to sit at home, waiting and hoping he will come back in one piece from some damned secret mission."
Jenny took a deep breath to calm down again after her voice had got louder with every word of the last sentence.
"Oh God, I'm an emotional wrack," she groaned and sank into the chair.
Jetrow slouched down on the armrest and put his hand reassuring on her arm.
"Come on, Jenny, let's go to the ARC and inform Lester about the latest move of your little stalker. He can check that Thomas fellow out and if the guy is clean I will arrange a candlelight dinner for you both myself."
Abby looked at Connor over the kitchen table. They had spent the last few days avoiding each other, or with Babyface as watchdog sitting between them on the couch.
"This has to stop or I will go crazy," Abby announced.
Connor lowered his head, conscious of his guilt. It was all his fault. If he hadn't drunk that drugged coffee they wouldn't be in this predicament. "Do you want me to move out?" he asked quietly, without looking up.
"No, Connor. I don't want you to move out again. I'm glad you are here," Abby protested vehemently. "It's just that this situation is driving me crazy. I'm finally over my anxiety over starting a relationship with you and now I get told we can't. "
"I know how you feel, Abby. I want to take you in my arms a dozen times a day. I would be happy to hold you just for a little while. Just hold you, nothing else."
Abby bit her lips pondering. "Who says we can't?" she asked some minutes later.
"But Cutter and Ditzy...."
"...said we shouldn't have sex or share bodily fluids. So that excludes kissing and all that heavy stuff. But we still could cuddle. And do other things as well." Abby said, pleased. "Why didn't I realise that sooner? I could have spared us all this trouble."
Abby smiled with a glint in her eyes at a dumbfounded Connor. "You, me on the couch, tonight."