Прожекторперисхилтон...

...сумел мне поднять настроение. И я уже не чувствую себя как старая тряпка. Хотя голова до сих пор болит после рынка. Это было круто. Обожаю Уилла. Завтра пойду на ЛВЧ 3))

@темы: tv

---

Драббл: Connor’sBestNightsEver

Написано для primeval100 вызов 253 - Лучшая ночь.
От автора: Это серия драбблов, которые могут быть прочитаны по одиночке, но и вместе они составляют целую историю.
Название: Connor’sBestNights Ever.

Автор: Athene

Переводчик: Zlataslawa

Бета: Загрызка

Ссылка на оригинал: deinonychus-1.livejournal.com/103228.html#cutid...

Фэндом: Первобытное
Персонажи: Коннор / Эбби, Каттер, НП
Рейтинг: 15
Предупреждения: подразумевается секс
Спойлеры: 4.1
Вызов: 253 - Лучшая Ночь.
Отказ: не мое. ITV и Impossible Pictures владеют ими.


Лучшая ночь Коннора - 2006

Мы собираемся пойти выпить. Хочешь с нами, Коннор? Можешь не спрашивать, он даже не пьёт",- Адам заговорил до того, как Коннор успел ответить. Коннор услышал, как хлопнула дверь, и смех его соседей исчез на улице. Он не мог не задаваться вопросом, что могло произойти, если бы он сказал да. Если бы он напивался каждые выходные, как и другие студенты. Но ему не нужен алкоголь, чтобы весело проводить время. У него была пицца, попкорн, и все DVD-диски «Звёздных войн», чтобы составить ему компанию. И как бы он не был обеспокоен этим, это была его лучшая ночь.

Лучшая ночь Коннора - 2007

Каттер сел рядом с ним на скамейке в парке, его внимание было направлено на сверкающую аномалию в центре места для пикника.
"Трицератопс был моим любимым динозавром, когда я был маленьким", - сказал Коннор.
"Спорим, ты никогда не думал, что в конечном итоге будешь охотиться за одним из них?"
Коннор только рассмеялся.
"Ты хорошо поработал сегодня," – тихо сказал Каттер. - "Умно мыслишь".
Коннор знал, что он улыбался, как идиот, но это его не волновало. Сейчас это была его жизнь. Люди, которые действительно хотели, чтобы он в этом участвовал, и… динозавры.
И пусть он ночью мёрз на улице, но это была его лучшая ночь.

Лучшая ночь Коннора - 2011

"Вау!"- Эбби усмехнулась и продолжила выводить пальцами случайные узоры на его груди.
Коннор извивался, наслаждаясь мягкостью простыней, окутывающих их (и, боже, разве это не ощущается потрясающе после года сна на земле?).
"Вау", - повторил он, его мозг все еще скатывался с посторгазменных высот.
Эбби подняла брови от удивления.
"Коннор? У тебя было ... это в первый раз, не так ли?"
"Угум ..."
Эбби улыбнулась и, наклонившись, захватила его губы в еще один поцелуй.
"Ты был великолепен, Коннор. Хочешь сделать это во второй раз, а? "
Это официально была его лучшая ночь.

Лучшая ночь Коннора - 2013

Беккер преследовал трицератопса вдоль улицы и загнал его обратно в меловой период, после чего Мэтт закрыл аномалию перед приветствующей их толпой. Коннор улыбнулся, глядя на действия мужчин.
Репортаж закончился.
"Типичный Беккер", - пробормотала Эбби. Она закатила глаза и теснее прижалась к Коннору. Ему хотелось быть там сегодня - трицератопс, в конце концов - и увидеть успешный дебют своего последнего изобретения, связанного с аномалиями, но он был в отпуске по важной причине.
Он посмотрел на малышку Кэти, спящую в его объятьях, и улыбка Коннора стала ещё больше.
Это было ... просто ничто не могло быть лучше, чем это.

запись создана: 22.05.2012 в 19:44

@темы: Перевод, Primeval, Ссылки, fanfiction

---

Caprica 1x13

Все что-ли? Как-то не законченно

@темы: Сериальное

---

кусок зуба откололся

---

Джульет Обри ...

...сегодня на тв3 в фильме Суперизвержение. США 2011.
Ох, она великолепна. На сколько я не любила Хелен, на столько мне нравится сама Джульет. А выглядит она ещё лучше, чем в сериале. Ей идет быть ученым. Кажется я на эмоциях, но она секси
хотя в сериале она сыграла много-много лучше.

@темы: Actors&actresses, Primeval, Кино

---

Нужна помощь...

Люди, спасите-помогите? Нужна помощь. Я опять с телефона. Можете мне 2 главы фика сюда скинуть? Регистрация там для этого не нужна. Пожалуйста. Думаю, если по пол главы в коммент скидывать, то как раз нормально вместится. Только без море. Спасибо. Надеюсь.
Ссылки: primeval-denial.livejournal.com/3170396.html?st...
primeval-denial.livejournal.com/3172729.html?st...

@темы: Primeval, Ссылки, fanfiction

---

Caprica 01x10

И именно Кларис жива.
Вопреки не знаю чему, а Грейстоуны мне нравятся.
Ещё теракт? Сколько можно?
А сука-Барнабас мне нравится. Кларис ебанутая, прастити.
Как бы все было иначе, не будь тайн на каждом шагу в начале по поводу и без.
Мне кажется, что сериал был бы успешнее, если бы он был до Галактики.
Ненавижу фанатиков.

@темы: Сериальное

---

Caprica 01x06

Марсик, привет. Ему идет эта маечка
кажется ещё так далеко до сайланов, а вообще это круто.

@темы: Сериальное

---

Этот копирайт на вконтактной группе на фотках Ханны меня бесит бля.

@темы: Мороз крепчал(с.)

---

А остальным больше всех надо. Нашлись поборники нравственности. Перевозбудились что-ли?

@темы: tv

---

В комментах к этому посту пишите 7 вещей,которые ассоциируются со мной!
У себя делает такой же флешоб и вместе с ассоциациями кидаете ссыль на него в том же комменте!
Я в ответ делаю тоже самое!
Осаливаете 5 человек (можно больше)

запись создана: 30.07.2010 в 19:43

@темы: Мороз крепчал(с.), Пч, Флешмоб

---

Первый флешмоб в моем дневнике

Флэшмоб от VeraVicca
Хотелось бы знать, что мои Постоянные читатели думают обо мне.
Хочется мне новых картинок!

запись создана: 24.04.2010 в 13:34

@темы: Я, Флешмоб

---

primeval-denial.livejournal.com/3159768.html?st...
Title: Something Like Claudia Brown 6/?
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: Still owning nothing of Primeval.
Rating: PG-13 at the outset, I may change it later.
Summary: Abby's going to get married. Then she goes through an anomaly, comes back out, and finds out just how upsetting the Claudia Brown phenomenon can be.
A/N: Booooo! I had this half written when Stephen and Connor took over my brain and made me write the thing I posted at four in the morning when I was so tired I couldn't remember how to spell maneouvre properly and had to default to the American spelling because I couldn't figure out where to put the 'o'. Anyhow, and then I tried to save what I'd written and it got deleted. All I can say is, thank God it's Victoria Day weekend and we've got Monday off.

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


Abby was woken the next morning by the sound of her mobile going off, calling her out to an anomaly. By now, after years of doing this, it was all routine. Grab a rucksack with snacks, something to drink, coffee from the machine she and Connor spent hours arguing over that made coffee for you at a preset time overnight (he'd won the argument for that gizmo and two weeks after they bought it she'd dressed up as Buffy the Vampire Slayer for him and the sex had been fantastic). It was habit to snag the black box that had been recharging overnight (also habit, that) and the EMD, she absently noted it was getting low on charge, and headed out the door.

It wasn't until she was on the road that she realised she'd been so caught up in routine she hadn't even realised what she was doing. The black box wasn't needed because there was going to be no Jess in her ear, telling them all where to go and covering up the CCTV footage. The EMD was technology no one had invented because Matt wasn't there to provide the impetus and demand it, and most of all, she didn't need the second rucksack with all of Connor's bits and pieces he never remembered, the second cup of coffee he'd normally be sucking down like an amped-up hoover and she'd turned the sat-nav to the passenger side automatically, just because it made Connor happy to fiddle with it.

But Connor wasn't there, wasn't drinking his coffee, the machine she must have simply wound up buying for herself in this strange new world, and the bits and pieces weren't going to be used because Connor wouldn't be there to need them.

"I've got to stop crying," she muttered to herself.

She arrived at the office building to see Stephen waiting outside, looking cool and composed and sexy as ever. Even now, in love with Connor as she was, she had to admit, the man was a stunning package of lean lines and handsome face. He brightened as she trotted up the steps. "Abby," he said with a grin. "You're looking quite . . ." he paused, looking her up and down, and Abby was forced to recall the masses of punk wear she had in her closet in lieu of the jeans and pretty, yet comfortable tops she'd taken to wearing since coming back.

Connor, with no Burton to impress, had gone back to his waistcoats, fingerless gloves and scarves at once. Jess and Matt had been taken aback, while Emily had taken it in stride and pronounced it quite dashing in her opinion. It had led to the first time she'd ever seen Matt do anything that looked like bowing to peer pressure, and she and Jess had giggled over his attempts to imitate Connor's style, of all people, clearly thinking to woo Emily with it. Connor had been clueless about the whole thing, simply happy to be himself again. Lester had gone about muttering, yet produced Connor's old fedora from somewhere-or-other.

She shook off the shades of a now-gone timeline. "What? Like an adult? Anyhow, are we going right in, or what?"

That slow, lazy grin that had once made her knees wobble spread over his face. "First," he said, "sexy. And second, we've already got everyone out, fake bomb threat, and the SFs are guarding the doors and checking through the building. We're just waiting on Nick and Claudia."

"I'm not getting together with you," she informed him. "For one, I'm not that Abby, for another, the other you was a complete berk to me about the possibility of us dating, and last," she looked at him sadly, showing the ring on her finger. "I was supposed to get married only a few days ago. I'm never seeing him again and I'm not about to leap into bed with anyone else."

The grin slid off his face and he straightened at once, taking her hand to look at the ring. "It's very nice, and I'm sorry, Abby." The seriousness and calm, the way he'd instantly eased back on flirting to that soothing friendship she did recall seeing between him and Cutter made her smile back. "I should have thought about that." He looked away. "It's just . . . when we broke up," he gave a bark of laughter, "I don't think anyone had ever broken up with me before that I was going to have to see again on such a regular basis."

"Then that's been an important experience for you," Abby told him with a grin. "Anyhow, this'll free you up to make a move on Sarah, right? Someone who'll actually want to hear about all the disgusting things you ate in Gambia or wherever."

He rolled his eyes. "You're all just so pedestrian in your eating habits," he told her. "Really, I can't imagine having access to nothing but roast beef and mashed potatoes for the rest of my life."

"After having to eat scavenged velociraptor and listen to Connor moan about writing his imaginary cookery book, 'Yummy Roots and Tasty Bulbs', I think I've earned the right to be left alone about it," Abby informed him.

He stared. "What exactly do you mean?" he asked. "You've mentioned being trapped in the past once or twice, but you really haven't go into any detail. How long were you there?"

"One really long, really awful year," Abby said with a sigh. "In the Cretaceous, if you're wondering."

"My God, Abby," he said. "That's . . . unbelievable. That wasn't . . . when you got here, when you . . . things . . . changed, you hadn't just come back from that?" he asked, looking worried.

The worry was palpable, and Abby saw his fingers flex against his car, reminding her of nothing so much as how she'd wanted to help Connor about in the Cretaceous, him too hurt to get safely about, too proud to ask her for help because he didn't want to be a burden. Stephen looked like the slightest encouragement would send him across the space between them to offer her comfort and anything else she asked.

For a moment she wanted that. He was right there, wanted her, was gorgeous and practically primed to be a new boyfriend, but Connor's request over the com system, that if the giant carnivorous bugs ate him she'd never look at another man again, flashed in her memory, along with the still-fresh loss of her Connor, and she pulled herself together. She might someday move on, but right now it would just be dating for the sake of dating, and everyone deserved better than that. "No, Stephen. That was a couple years ago, now. We'd been back for a fair while before this," she gestured vaguely about, "happened."

He instantly relaxed. "Good. Because I can't imagine what that might have been like, I wouldn't have wanted to find out that you'd been trying to readjust after something like that."

"Yeah, it wasn't easy," she admitted. "There were days when I think we both wanted to run off back through the anomalies, like Helen, only coming back if we wanted something-or-other." She looked around at the concrete and steel that surrounded her. "It really is incredibly different, in a way I don't even think getting lost in the wilderness could be, just because you know that no one will come."

He looked a little oddly at her. "Like Helen, Abby?" He took in a deep breath. "There's someone I've avoided thinking about for a very long time. I do wonder what happened after she went through the anomaly focal point."

"The anomaly . . . focal point?" Abby asked, hesitantly. He didn't mean . . .

"Yes," he said slowly. "You mentioned that time yourself, with the dodos?"

"The spaghetti junction of anomalies, right," Abby said. "Wait. You haven't seen Helen since then?"

"No," Stephen said shrugging. "I wonder what happened to her, sometimes."

Abby was saved from trying to answer that, because Cutter, Claudia and the SFs all showed up then, in a flurry of vehicles and uniforms, and they all marched into the building to find out what exactly had prompted the call. They only knew that it was "Some sort of weird, mutant dog-things!" Unfortunately, that left everything open from dogs to dozens of potential suspects from prehistory which were all the originating species of something else.

On the sixteenth floor, they found it. A large mammal of some type, snarling and heading for the door of the hastily emptied cubicle farm it had come out in. As they tried to scare it back through, Abby saw it taking lunges at them all, snarling, trying to get through the door. Eventually they hit it with enough tranqs to knock it out, but something about the reactions made Abby uneasy. While the others all congratulated themselves, she snapped a picture with her mobile, then went to Stephen.

"Did any of that seem odd to you?" she asked him.

He frowned a moment, then suddenly his face set in understanding. "You're right. Why was it so determined to get out that door?"

In perfect accord they went into the hallway beyond, where he spotted something they'd all missed on the way in. "Look at this," he said, kneeling down next to the streaks of mud on the floor. "Footprints."

They led out, but the mud had clearly been worn away by carpeting and dried up, and by the time they got to the bank of lifts, although they could tell the thing had come this way, there was no way of knowing where it had gone. Only that, "It's small," Abby said, looking at the width and lengths of the trackway. "I bet it's her baby."

They looked at the lifts, one of which dinged and opened on its own. "If someone had left a lift running when we cleared the building," Stephen said slowly, "It could have got on, then gotten off anywhere." He cursed, turned, and headed off to get Cutter.

Abby nipped down the hall, and dialled a number on her mobile. Connor had kept the same number the whole time she'd known him, before they'd gone to the Cretaceous. If she was right, he should still have it. "Hello?"

"Oh, thank God. Connor, I need your database. We've got something loose in an office building and we need an idea where it might go. I've got a picture I could email you-"

He cut her off, swearing softly, then she heard a clatter, and Connor's voice saying, "No, sir. Of course I'm not taking personal calls. It's just Tom down at the mainframe. There's some sort of issue he wanted me to consult on." A pause. "Of course, sir. I'll make sure he calls someone else next time." Another sound of a shuffling phone, then Connor saying, "Hey, Tom, you know we're not supposed to use our mobiles for this. You mind using the office line?" Her phone beeped, saying she'd gotten a text message. "Thanks, mate." Then he hung up.

The message was a number and an extension, and Abby didn't hesitate to punch in the number, then navigated her way through the system of a stock trading firm she forgot the name of the minute she was in the system. The phone barely rang before Connor was answering, "Temple."

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't realise, but I need the help."

"Abby!" shouted Stephen.

"Damnit," she hissed. "Conn, look, I'm sending you the picture, can you just email me something to narrow down where we should be looking for its young?"

"Got it," he said, all effeciency. "I'll look it up quickly. Do you need an assist at getting into the CCTV in the building?"

"Abby!"

Putting a hand over the mobile to muffle her voice, she shouted back, "Just a sec, I'm fine!" Then put the phone back to her ear. "I should be fine, you and Jess taught me enough to get by, but I'll text if I need something. Don't worry. Gotta run, and thanks," she told him, snapping her mobile shut.

"What are you doing here?" Cutter demanded.

She froze a second, then lied like her life depended on it. "Just seeing if there was a chance it had gone this way." She pointed at a carpet that had some tears in it. "I thought those might have been from claws."

Cutter's face cleared. "Alright then. Listen, Sarah just got here, and I want you to head down there and watch her back while she looks at the CCTV system to see what's about."

Abby sighed and headed for the security centre, while the manly men went about doing manly things, while the three women were delegated to staying out of the way with the tv screens. She missed having Connor there to do that while she got to be in the action. She missed Jess doing that, so both she and Connor were in the action.

Halfway to her destination, accompanied by an SF, as though she didn't know how to shoot a gun, her phone buzzed with a message from Connor.

Ambulocetus, semi-aquatic mammal, Eocene period. It's a sort of proto-whale. Best guesses at the moment are that it's like a mammalian crocodile. So it may head for water if there's any to be had. Otherwise, my best guess is treat it mostly like an adolescent croc. Most people think it's an ambush predator.

It came with a picture from his database that pretty much matched what she had, and Abby smiled to herself as she sent a quick 'thank you' back. She'd forgotten about the SF, when he said, "You've been talking to that Temple lad?"

Abby whipped around, her heart pounding. Yes, she wanted to bring the two teams together, but she hadn't put together a plan yet, she didn't want things to fall apart before she'd had the chance to try properly. "What do you mean?"

The look in his eyes was shrewd, but kind, as he said, "Nothing, only that I've seen the work he and his people do, and I'd love to have a chance to work with some of his people. They're good."

"Harry Jacobson, wasn't it?" she asked, as they started back down the hall. "I remember you. Becker always liked putting you on point in the field."

"Becker?"

"SAS and head of our security," she told him. "Dark hair that looks like it never moves?"

A look of enlightenment appeared on his face. "Oh, that one. We call him the android, because that hair is not natural."

Abby was still laughing as she slipped into the control room for the security and joined the other two, who were staring in horror at the password protected system, while Claudia explained to Cutter that, "I can't magic these computers on to show anything, Nick. We're not hackers, you know."

"Move over," Abby said to Sarah. "All right, if I were the passwords of a nearly computer illiterate security guard, where would I be?" A few minutes later she found it. The little bit of writing on a tiny slip of paper underneath a monitor. "Hah. Passwords." From there it was the work of moments to navigate the system, bring up the monitors and start looking.

Keeping Connor's advice about crocs in mind, Abby checked the decorative pools and fountains on the main level. Nothing there and she started working her way up, floor by floor. "How . . . since when can you do that, Abby?" Sarah asked.

"My fiance," Abby said by way of explanation. She didn't feel like defending Connor right then, they were working and the fight that could erupt, given Claudia's opinion of Connor, didn't seem worth it. She was no Jess Parker or Connor Temple, but she knew enough to know how to look.

Fifth floor, an odd sort of lower area and a pipe that had somehow burst, flooding the section of floor, and there it was. Claudia had been talking with Cutter the whole time, Abby not paying the least attention, but she snatched the phone from the older woman's hands, once again bemoaning the loss of the earpieces, she really had to talk to Lester about that, and said, "The calf's on the fifth floor, Cutter. There's a burst pipe, and it's turned that office into a pool, pretty much, there's some weird sort of steps there that are holding the water. And Cutter, tell everyone to watch out, it's probably an ambush predator."

"Why are you so sure?" Cutter asked her curiously.

It was absent-minded, it was what she'd always done when relaying Connor's information to Cutter or anyone else. "It's an ambulocetus. Protowhale and probably an ambush predator like a crocodile. The mother seems to be built like one."

"Got it. Keep an eye on it and let me know if it moves," Cutter said.

Abby handed the phone back to Claudia, who looked at her, impressed. "That is different. Normally we just have to rely on the hit or miss from Nick and look into it later."

Hastily, Abby said, "That was just luck. I'd looked through Connor's database once. I just . . . remembered."

"Connor's database?" Sarah asked, curiously. "Is this as in Connor Temple?"

"Yes," Abby replied. Then, figuring it couldn't hurt, she said, "He'd been building it since he was fourteen. It was already extremely comprehensive before the anomaly project started, once we started having real animals to use for adding information it grew. We had a pretty impressive amount of memory devoted to the thing," Abby told her with a smile.

Nodding, Sarah said, "I can see how that would be useful, having all that at your fingertips. I wonder why they didn't get that from Connor in this timeline." She shrugged. "Well, by now there's so much bad blood he'll probably refuse based on principle alone."

"Probably," Abby agreed.

The SFs, Cutter and Stephen wrapped up getting the animals back through and they all trooped back to the Home Office to file reports. Abby got to her office, shut the door, and after a moment's thought, shoved a chair in front of it to block it from opening unexpectedly, and texted Connor.

You free? I want to thank you.

A minute later her mobile rang. "Hello?"

"You get the ambulocetus back through?" he asked, all business. He sounded like Matt, no time on the job to go off on tangents or anything else.

She took her cue from that and replied, "Yes. It was a mother and its calf. We found it hiding out in a flooded office, but they got it back through. Did you want me to tell you anything in particular, or would you be fine if I just photocopied the report I'm writing for Lester, or what?"

There was an odd sort of hesitation in his voice as he said, "D'you think we could meet up? I think we need to talk more. About everything."

"Sure," she said. "We could meet at my flat, if you'd like."

"I think the others would be pretty unhappy if I monopolised you," he replied, sounding amused. "How about . . ." he named an unexpectedly familiar address.

"Jenny's house?" Abby asked, surprised.

"Er . . . yeah," Connor sounded taken aback. "You know where that is, then?"

"Yes," she said. "Tonight? Maybe sevenish?"

"That works," he said. "I'll text if it changes."

"Okay," Abby felt so awkward. If he'd been her Connor, now was the time she'd have told him she loved him. But he wasn't and now she just had to end the call without accidentally sounding just a bit mad. "I'll see you then. I have to get back to work."

"Yeah, me too," he told her. "Tonight."

There was a brusque click as he hung up, and Abby snapped her mobile closed as well. Then she resolutely turned to the computer on the desk to complete her report. Because people might come back from the dead, fiances disappear, half the world could go mad, but the paperwork would still be there.

@темы: Primeval, Ссылки, fanfiction

---

Caprica

01х05
Начала опять смотреть. Сериал такой, как прервешься, так начинать не хочется, но когда смотришь, то не хочешь останавливаться.
Меня подташнивает от семей переростков. Ну, как у той учительницы.
Ну и стиль там у них, в новой Каприке.
Ух ты, у меня уже даже первый маленький шип появился. Тамара и тот чувак, имя которого я никак не вспомню и не запомню.
Хах, я поняла почему все так любят Сашу из Гримм, хотя может и не поэтому, но в тут он тоже есть
Ой, какая девочка. Настоящая тауронка. Тамара Адама.
Придет, не придет парень к Джозефу?
А что же он убежал?
Поговорите со мной?

запись создана: 19.05.2012 в 18:41

@темы: Сериальное

---

Суини Тодд, демон-парикмахер с Флит-Стрит

По тв3 с субтитрами. Джонни Депп, Алан Рикман, Хелена Бонем Картер и ещё какие-то знакомые чуваки.
Хах, классно-то как.

@темы: Кино

---

Закрытая запись, не предназначенная для публичного просмотра

---

Previous Entry

Fic: Something Like Claudia Brown 5/?
16 Май, 2012 at 9:51 PM
scwlc_ficTitle: Something Like Claudia Brown 5/?
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: Still owning nothing of Primeval.
Rating: PG-13 at the outset, I may change it later.
Summary: Abby's going to get married. Then she goes through an anomaly, comes back out, and finds out just how upsetting the Claudia Brown phenomenon can be.
A/N: I'm not exactly totally happy with this, but I feel like it's the best I can do at the moment with where I'm going.


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


Abby stared at Connor, who had always been the first to leap up and go along with hopes and schemes and optimistic plans. He was the one who, lost in the Cretaceous, had kept faith they'd get home, long after she'd resigned herself to dying in prehistory. It was so different from anything she'd expected out of Connor that she just gaped for a minute. In fact, she gaped for so long that Connor started looking very uncomfortable and said, "Maitland? Are you alright? You're not having a stroke or some such?"

"Absence seizure?" offered Tom.

Abby shook herself. "I just . . . you're really different from my Connor is all."

He raised an eyebrow, offering a sardonic smirk her way. "Was I supposed to leap up and agree to beard the T-rex in his den?"

She'd been so relieved at just seeing him, at seeing aspects of her fiance, she'd failed to notice Connor was dressed in dark military fatigues, as were they all, but Jenny. She hadn't noticed the world-weary look in his eyes or the way that his puppyish eagerness was muted with a sort of weight on his shoulders that looked like Danny when they'd thought Becker was lost to predators or Cutter when Valerie had been killed by her pet smilodon. Something had crushed that joy out of Connor, and she had the terrible feeling that it might have been Cutter.

Abby said none of this. Just felt tears prick her eyes, because one of the things that had made Connor so loveable and such a source of strength for her had been the way he always expected things to come out alright. This one expected nothing, just another body slam of disdain and bad news. "Well," she said, "I should have expected this. If I could be dating Stephen Hart, I suppose Connor Temple could become a pessimist."

That was when her mobile rang. It was Cutter. "Where are you?" he asked. "I was thinking that perhaps you might join us for dinner. Claudia's conspired with Stephen and Sarah to order in some food from some unholy foreign source-"

Stephen's voice in the background, laughingly alive, made her feel the tears again. "Sushi, Nick, is hardly madly exotic. Now, South African bat on the other hand-"

"Shut up you pillock," Cutter growled. "I thought you might want to get to know how things are now, again."

Sarah was saying something that made Stephen laugh again and Cutter clearly pull the phone away from his mouth to be nasty to them both.

Spend an evening with Stephen and Cutter? See them both alive and well and not bloody or dead? See Stephen at all, since there'd been almost nothing left after the predators had been done with him? She couldn't refuse that chance, for all that she was here, faced with Connor and Tom and other dear and familiar faces. Claudia was now on the line, a woman Connor had told her was the last thing Cutter had thought of while dying. "Abby? Are you coming?"

"Yes," she said, a little abruptly. "Yes, I am. I'm just . . . it'll take me a bit to get there. Are you still at Cutter's old house, or somewhere else?" She'd only been there once, but it was at the other end of London from the theatre.

The other three were getting louder, Stephen and Sarah conspiring in some way to harass Cutter. Claudia gave her the address. "Would you three knock it off!" she snapped.

"I know where that is," Abby said, feeling fairly ovewhelmed. "I'll be there in about an hour. It'll take that long from where I am, now." She'd have to take the bus, since she'd been kidnapped her car was still at the back alley.

"See you then," said Claudia, and hung up.

The people who weren't her friends anymore, because these strange copies never had been were staring at her. "Cutter just invited me to dinner. He wants to catch me up with how things are now," she told them.

"So, you're just . . . off?" Tom asked, looking sceptical.

She nodded. "I need to know more, and if I want to try to get the ARC back, to get what I know we can do if we all just work together on this, I need to know them too."

"There's more to it than that," Danny spoke from behind her, having moved without her noticing, now startling the hell out of her. "You're all soppy about it." The nasty spark in his eyes that had previously only been reserved for people like Helen and Christine Johnson was in his eyes, reminding her of the suspicious detective she, Jenny and Connor had met at the old house. "Is it Stephen?"

Her emotions had already been on a whirlwind up and down several times in only the last few minutes. Affection, amusement, sadness, grief, loneliness, anger, confusion, so many feelings all swirled inside her and made her take it out on him. "Yes, it's Stephen. It's the man who walked into a room with a dozen alpha predators from as many different periods in history and let them tear him apart to save everyone from being mauled to death. It's Cutter, who was murdered by fucking Helen, because she's a psychotic bitch, and it's Sarah, who died to rescue me and Connor when she shouldn't have been out there, and Claudia, who I never knew, but was the last thing on Cutter's mind when he died in Connor's arms. So you can take your damned attitude and shove it up your arse, Danny! If you had a chance to see Patrick the way he was, not as Ethan fucking Dobrowski, you'd take it, wouldn't you?"

She turned on her heel, storming past them all towards the exit. She paused on the way out and shouted back, "And Connor? The theatre Emily, Charlotte and Ethan came out in along with the arboreal raptors? Not subtle at all."

She left to the sound of Connor saying, "Arboreal raptors? Wait a second, Emily, why didn't you tell me there are arboreal raptors? I could have a whole new entry into my database." Then, "Maitland, you tease!"

It was on the bus, heading back to the other side of town that Abby felt herself starting to cry again. For a moment she'd thought she could get everything and everyone back. But she'd finally registered Connor wasn't calling Abby, he was calling her by her last name. He'd never called her Maitland. Not once. Not even during their worst fights when he'd just blackmailed his way into her flat. That mistrustful look on Danny's face hadn't been aimed at her since he'd found out how and why Patrick had vanished. Becker had never looked at her that way, the way he'd looked at Christine Johnson, all polite interest and perfect military bearing without a smidgen of compassion, and Jenny was . . . it was like the worst of all the bad times with Jenny. That supercilious smugness from the early days, that beaten down exhaustion from after Cutter's death, all of them so alike and so different, and Abby suddenly wanted to be back at her flat with Rex again, because at least Rex wasn't different.

"You alright, Ma'am?" asked the kid sitting in front of her while she stood there, trying to surreptitiously wipe away her tears one-handed, gripping the steel pole for balance in the stop and go of London traffic. When had she become a ma'am? Not that it didn't feel appropriate, she felt so old suddenly, like someone who'd seen the world change into unrecognisability over the course of a lifetime.

Abby cleared her throat, "Yes, I'm okay. Just got some bad news is all."

He gave her a sympathetic smile, and she forced herself to think about the evening ahead, and her other three friends, just as different, but at least alive and well.

The ride was a long one, and eventually the kid left and Abby was able to take his seat, fingering the matchbook Connor had given her when he'd found out where Danny was taking him to start off the stag night. Connor had gotten it to her, making sure she'd know where to start looking for him if she needed to. He'd made a joke about Danny being Chewbacca, given the state the man's hair had been in when he'd finally made it safely back to the 21st century, and had scribbled a note into the matchbook.

Chewie and me are starting here. Should I keep the walking rug out of your way?

She'd carefully laid aside the tinsel from her and Connor's last trip through the anomaly, wanting to preserve what few memories she had of him, but the matchbook was the last note he'd written her, and she wasn't able to let it go yet, any more than she'd take off the engagement ring he'd got her with a little tiny green-studded lizard for the band. Her stop came and went, and she was startled into movement at that, getting off at the next one and having to walk back to get her connection. The tube might have been faster, but the bus routes meant only the one connection, not two, and in her state of mind, simpler was better.

Eventually she made it to Cutter's, pausing at the door to pull herself together before knocking. She was greeted by a warmly smiling Claudia, who said, "Lovely to see you, Abby. Nick, Stephen and Sarah are competing to see who has better tall tales about digging expeditions, so I'm grateful that you're here, since you hopefully can make them all stop."

Dinner was pleasant, if a little awkward. Abby found herself with an elephant in the room that only she could see, which was of Connor and the others on his 'crew'. For every story Cutter, Stephen and Sarah told her, Abby could recall that event, but with Connor there, with Danny or Jenny, with Becker or Matt or Emily. They loomed large, and she didn't know how to deal with the impression the others had that somehow Abby must have been less experienced than they were, seen fewer anomalies or any number of other things.

The stories filled in the blanks left by the official reports, but they also compounded proof of the reason for Connor's bitterness and pessimism on the idea of being accepted by Cutter and the rest. In the minds of Cutter and Stephen, Connor was forever frozen in that moment of gormless, cheerfully overenthusiastic silliness when he'd sent his housekey into the anomaly in the Forest of Dean.

Even as Stephen told her a story in disapproving tones of Duncan, putting himself in the way of an angry indricotherium to save two small children, dying in the process, she wanted to shake them. The Home Office team had been late to the scene and Duncan and the others had been doing their best with the lack of supplies available to people with no access to the government resources that made life easier for the official team. It was a blind spot, and Abby had to admit it was the same one she'd suffered from when they first started.

But she remembered that angry mammalian version of a sauropod, remembered seeing Connor and Stephen tag-team against it together, whilst she and Cutter tried desperately to reload the tranquilisers. The adventurer and the geek had made a perfect team, Connor's perfect knowledge of the anatomy of the animal meant he'd known how close he could get to distract it and keep it away from potential victims, and Stephen's sheer skill could do the other side, and between them they'd got it back through the temporal gate without even needed to resort to shooting. Stephen had bought Connor a pint at the pub that night, and Connor had relaxed enough to tell them about the string of practical jokes he, Tom and Duncan had done at the university. He'd won a place on the team before that, but that evening he won himself a place as an equal with the others.

It hadn't happened here.

The story of how Sarah joined the team was nearly the same, but no one had found out that you could lock an anomaly, no one had figured out that the sun cage was a magnetic holder, trapping an anomaly inside it.

She wound up alone with Claudia, hiding and helping in the kitchen, because she didn't know the woman, and while the resemblance to Jenny was confusing, at least there wasn't that same awful expectation that she'd be one way, then react another. "You know, it's sort of odd," she commented to her, "For the longest time, you were sort of an abstract to me."

Claudia seemed to smile in amusement and frown in confusion at the same time. "What do you mean?"

"Well, when Cutter came out of the second Permian anomaly, everything had changed for him. So, while he knew you, had still been working out of the Home Office and everything, none of us had. As far as we knew, Oliver Leek-"

"That creepy, slimy, weaselly, vile, scheming, horrible little man?" Claudia asked, horrified. "I know Oliver Leek. He shouldn't be anywhere near the anomaly project, he'd botch it and turn it into some dreadful self-serving three ring circus."

"He did at that," Abby admitted. "But it took Helen interfering for things to get really bad."

Claudia shuddered. "Let's not talk about him. You were saying, about Nick coming out of a second Permian anomaly?"

"Yes. Well, you didn't exist, you see. So, he comes out, expecting to see you, and we just think he's raving. Just gone completely mad over there," Abby explained. "Eventually we believed him, but it was sort of like believing in God or something. We just had to trust Cutter hadn't lost his mind, especially when Lester hired Jenny and he kept on calling her Claudia."

"Ah, the perils of being a twin," Claudia said, sounding wryly remeniscent.

Abby nodded, shifting a few more dishes to the sink. "So, eventually, 'Claudia Brown' became a shorthand for, 'massive change in the past creating a different present you only discover when you get back.'"

"Which is why you said that it's just like Claudia Brown when you were trying to explain things to Nick," Claudia nodded in some satisfaction at the explanation. "I suppose it must be even more disconcerting for you, given that you're not dealing with one person who could be treated as an amnesiac, in some ways, but everyone you know."

Sighing, Abby could only agree. "It's confusing. I mean, Stephen and I never dated at all. In fact, I'm pretty sure that he spent a lot of time lying to me in order to keep me at arm's length because he was still so hung up on Helen."

"I'm rather amazed, actually," Claudia said. "The moment Helen came back, he latched onto you rather quickly. It almost seemed like he was trying to stake some sort of ground out to make clear to her that he wasn't going to have anything to do with her anymore." She shrugged. "We haven't seen much of anything of her for quite some time."

No Helen? Stephen and Cutter and Ryan alive? Sarah alive? Maybe it was all for the better that Connor had never joined, not for the progress of the ARC, but for the lives that had been saved.

But lives weren't saved, murmured a voice in the back of her head. Ben had been killed by the gorgonopsid and half a dozen zookeepers from Wellington Zoo had gone thanks to the the future predators, if the post-incident report was accurate. He brother was gone through the anomaly at the racetrack and the G-Rex had got a planeload of people before they'd brought it down. The little girl that had fed the chameleon monster had been torn to shreds in her brave quest to protect the neighbourhood pets, and Taylor "ain't baggage" from the Silurian was never seen again.

The people from the ARC were here, but the lives they had saved in Abby's timeline were gone. Killed because the anomaly project wasn't good enough, didn't have Danny to take mad risks and Becker to stand stalwart in the face of danger. They were here because they hadn't been there to put their lives on the line.

But no one of the home office team knew this. They'd been there as much as they could, as often as they knew to be there, and Stephen was still the man who would take on a prehistoric monster unarmed to protect a boy and his teacher, and Sarah was still brilliant and fearless, Cutter still headstrong and stubbornly determined to do what he thought was right.

She just had to make them all see that bringing Connor and everyone else in was the best thing to do. She just wished she knew how to do it.

запись создана: 17.05.2012 в 09:43

@темы: Сперто. Без суда и следствия., Primeval, fanfiction

---

16.05.2012 в 02:16

Пишет  EricMackay:

Los Angeles Zoo, 10 мая 2012 года

А я против того чтобы этого долбоеба брали на культурно-массовые мероприятия. Он мало того что сам мудак, так еще и всех вокруг нервирует





Гадких змей зачем-то ребенку показывали. Извращенцы

@темы: _Sarah_Michelle_Gellar, photo, _Charlotte_Grace_Prinze

---

Божечки, какое наслаждение!

@темы: Game of Thrones

---

@темы: Game of Thrones