Fic: React to Contact
May. 27th, 2011 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thelibraniniquity posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
tli_productionsTitle: React to Contact
Fandom: Primeval
Summary: As much as he's happy that his friends are home and safe in their own time, he hates them for constantly reminding him by presence alone that they're still missing someone. That he's still missing someone.
Characters: Becker/Stephen, Jess, Matt, Connor, Abby, Lester; references to others
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3200
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fredbassett
Spoilers: Through to episode 4.04
Warnings: Plays fast and loose with canon; bad language and sexual references.
Author's Notes:lady_drace once posed the question: "What if Connor was stranded for a year with someone else?". This... doesn't answer that question, but certainly took inspiration from it. Quite possibly the most timey-wimey thing I've written in this fandom to date. Definitely the first instalment of a series. And with thanks to explodedpen for all the usual hand-holding and reassurances.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
On Becker's second day back at the ARC after the school incident, which so far has been the only way he can explain giant bite marks on his leg without Mum realising he's lying, he is restricted to light base-bound duty.
So far, he's transported requisition forms between Jessica's console and Lester's office and done a couple of tea runs for the sub-level technicians. On the way back up to the main ops room he has to duck into an empty laboratory just to catch his breath and check that his stitches haven't ruptured, or something.
It's only when he sees Jessica's look of girlish sympathy from her chair that he realises just how much he hates being restricted to base.
He doesn't have much time to indulge in hatred, though, because right then the anomaly alert goes off. It still sounds strange, even after several months in the new ARC, but it's just as loud. Out of deference to his impaired mobility, Becker hangs back as the rest of the team emerge from various corridors and doors to converge around Jess. Connor grips his arm briefly as he jogs past, Abby in close tow, and the sight of both of them together is another dull punch to Becker's gut. As much as he's happy that his friends are home and safe in their own time, he hates them for constantly reminding him by presence alone that they're still missing someone.
That he's still missing someone.
“Anomaly alert. Location is...”
“Location's what?” Matt asks.
For a few seconds all Becker hears is the sound of fingers on keyboards. “Nowhere. It's gone.”
“Gone?” Connor leans in. Becker's drawn closer as well.
“Has this ever happened before?” Jessica asks, leaning to one side to give Connor access to the terminal.
He shakes his head, and Becker can easily picture the frown. “Never known them to come and go this quickly. There's always been a few hours' give in them.” He looks up at Abby, who nods in agreement.
“Well, not this one.” Jessica takes over again. “Maybe it's a sign. You know, that they're slowing down.”
“Perhaps it's a sign you should all get back to work.” Lester appears from his office and glides over to join the half-circle around the computer terminal. “Assuming there's no anomaly for you all to chase, of course.”
Jessica confirms it. “No, it's gone.”
“We should check it out anyway; find out what happened,” Connor says.
Becker feels impotent, watching the scene play out and knowing that he's physically incapable of taking part in any plan the rest of the team come up with. He's only tried the mission control thing once since joining the ARC and it's not an experience he cares to replicate any time soon.
His leg twitches then, and Becker is acutely aware that if he tries to move again, his limp will show. Right now that's the last thing he wants, to show any more weakness and invite any more pity. He's reached his quota for the day, maybe even for the rest of his life.
He misses the end of the discussion about the anomaly-that-wasn't. Instead he watches everyone leave Jessica's terminal as quickly as they arrived, Connor brushing his arm lightly again as he passes by, a smile on his face and saying something that Becker doesn't quite catch.
The warmth and pressure from the brief contact on his arm stays long after Connor leaves.
o o o o o
Calling Stephen Hart's history in this timeline uneven was like saying Helen Cutter's time in the past had turned her a bit barmy. He'd died in Leek's warehouse, months before Becker had ever heard of the anomaly project, only to reappear six months later in the ARC's control room.
He'd shouted about clones and bombs – and only when he called Jenny 'Claudia' had Cutter taken notice. They'd stared at each other like they were both seeing ghosts, everyone else too stunned to move. Becker had stayed his ground as well, trying to assess an impossible situation.
It wouldn't have made any difference if he'd tried, though. That morning the anomaly detector sent the team chasing diictodons around a busy hospital, and that afternoon Helen Cutter and an army of clones stormed the ARC.
o o o o o
Later that afternoon, the anomaly alert goes off again. This time Becker's sat on a chair at the edge of Jessica's terminal, a hard-backed garishly coloured monstrosity that she carried out of Lester's office while he looked on in a pretence of disapproval. He makes sure to tuck his injured leg behind the other as the masses congregate. The last thing he wants is his cause of death to be listed as flattened by stampeding civilians.
“Anomaly's... sticking around this time,” Jessica reports cheerfully. “Industrial estate just over thirty miles out.” She looks up at Matt for the final part of the spiel. “I'll forward you exact co-ordinates when I have them.”
“Right you are.” He's already moving, and so are Connor and Abby. Becker beckons the sergeant in his unit over – she'll be taking point in the field in his absence – and makes sure she knows exactly what to do out there. Keep the team safe whatever the consequences, and let nothing and nobody through the anomaly.
They're hard-won protocols, and each time he repeats or enacts them, Becker has to remind himself of what happens when he doesn't.
He stopped pretending it wasn't personal months ago, after the regime change and the introduction of Philip Burton, Matthew Anderson and Jessica Parker into his working life. They're good protocols. Sound. Safe.
Jessica flashes another smile at him while she switches between keyboards and monitors in front of her. Somewhere in the background Lester looks bored, but a year and more of exposure means Becker knows where to look for tension and repressed anger.
He watches the computer hone in on the exact location of the anomaly-that-is.
Becker almost forgets to wish this will be the one Stephen Hart comes home through.
o o o o o
Becker was still at the hospital rounding up the diictodons when a phone call came from a dead man: Stephen told him in no uncertain terms to keep Cutter away from the ARC. All morning Stephen had acted as if he'd known and worked alongside Becker for weeks already, and it was that assuredness above anything else that made Becker move to obey the order.
Neither of them had counted on Cutter, though. Whatever history lay between him and Stephen, whatever had happened in Leek's warehouse that hadn't made it to the official reports, Cutter had stormed out of the hospital, leaving Becker to quite literally hold the baby, and gone straight back to the ARC.
Everything that happened after that Becker learned as third hand knowledge. Cutter had come face to face with his ex-wife and a cloned, subservient version of himself, and shut Stephen out completely when he tried to make the professor leave, the rest of the team having already been evacuated.
The clone blew up the ARC, with itself at the epicentre, and Stephen had dragged Cutter out of the ARC, only to be punched in the face and left in the car park while Cutter went back to find Helen, only to be shot for his trouble.
Despite Stephen's best efforts, he lost Cutter for a third time, and everyone else was left to wonder what would happen next.
o o o o o
Forty minutes later all hell breaks loose.
Matt and Sergeant Emerson are talking over the comms, bitching about some sort of roadblock that's slowing everything down and preventing them from reaching the anomaly site. Emerson wants to use some a siren to get the two ARC vehicles through quicker while Matt wants to remain unobtrusive. In the background there are various engine noises and the sounds of Connor and Abby talking quietly, deliberately trying to avoid being overheard by the rest of the team.
Then there's another noise, one that's unmistakeable. Something roars, instantly drowning out every other noise coming through the comms, and Becker's instincts are thrown into high alert. Leg be damned, he's up and leaning over Jessica's shoulder as the reports start coming in.
Underneath the static and panic – they've abandoned the vehicles and are tracking the anomaly on foot – information on events starts trickling back to the ARC. Becker tries not to override Emerson's now-cautious instructions to her team, but it's difficult, especially when Jessica hacks into the estate's CCTV network and he can see exactly what's happening out there.
A minute later, a greyish blur moves across one screen, and Matt announces he's got the creature – a lone velociraptor – in his sights, and takes off with an EMD while Emerson's team fans around to provide cover.
But it's not how he would do it, not even close, and it's only when Becker's fingers start to really hurt that he realises he's been gripping Jessica's chair tightly enough she can't swivel around to the secondary monitors. Inwardly mortified, he lets go of the chair and steps back, nearly missing his step and hissing when he puts too much pressure on his bad leg and stumbles.
“You all right, Becker?” Matt asks over the comm.
Becker splays his fingers over the back of his leg and wishes he could shoot something – with a proper gun, not those damned taser-like monstrosities Matt designed.
And now even Jessica is looking at him with wide-eyed compassion over the back of her chair. “I'm fine,” he grinds out. “Just tell me you've got the bloody situation under control!”
“Sir.” Emerson sounds wary – well, it's not every day her boss is base-bound and foul-mouthed, and up until now Becker's been able to contain his frustration.
“Sergeant.” Becker lets his voice drip with as much restrained anger as he can. “Anomaly. Contain it.”
“Yes, sir. I – what the hell was that?”
What the hell was what? Becker limps forward to the terminal again, leaning on Jessica's chair with both hands as she and everyone else try to find out what caught Emerson's attention.
“Just a motorcyclist.” Matt sounds either disappointed or relieved. It's hard to tell with him, sometimes. “Someone get him out of here.”
It's easier said than done. The CCTV coverage on Jessica's screens is fractured, but even Becker can tell the motorcyclist is up to something. Instead of leaving the immediate area – where a time portal and a real life dinosaur are – it looks almost like he's circling the site, as if he –
Becker's breath catches in his throat. The motorcyclist is herding the dinosaur back to the anomaly – or if not he's doing a bloody good impression of it.
And more than that – he's seen that behaviour before.
“Oh, my...” Connor sounds as shocked as Becker feels. “No way.”
“What?” Becker can hear Jessica's frown, even from behind her. “I don't understand – what's going on, guys? I need to know.”
“He made it back,” Connor says. “It's Stephen!”
o o o o o
The day after Cutter had been killed by his ex-wife and her pet clone of him, Stephen showed up at Becker's front door, smelling of alcohol and with a dangerous look on his face.
Becker hadn't bothered to ask how he'd slipped past the ARC's security patrols; he'd just stood aside to let him in. Stephen's ease at being around him was still unsettling, and it left Becker trailing in his wake, not something he was used to.
Stephen sat on the back of Becker's sofa, watching him with that same dark, unreadable expression, and looking back, Becker could pinpoint the exact moment he lost any semblance of control. That would have been when Stephen backed him onto his bed and fucked him into the mattress.
There had been no emotional connection, nothing to indicate that Stephen had done this with Becker before, but he took and took and Becker let him.
He knew the anatomy of grief well enough.
o o o o o
For the first time since the second anomaly alert went off, the comms fall silent. Everyone is considering the implications of Connor's pronouncement. The lump in Becker's throat shows no sign of going anywhere, and when the motorcyclist appears on-screen again he has to remind himself to breathe.
“Do you think it's really him?” Jessica's the first one to speak. Her eyes are glued to the screens even as she turns her head in Becker's general direction. “That it's Stephen Hart?”
Becker shakes his head. “I don't know,” he says, realising an answer is expected of him.
He tries not to think about who else it could he. He doesn't want it to be anybody else, he realises.
Just then the lone camera angle that Jessica's got on the anomaly shows the velociraptor running back through it, and on the screen immediately to the left, the motorcyclist comes to a stop, pulls something out of what looks like a rucksack, and aims it at the anomaly.
The anomaly closes immediately.
The motorcyclist then pulls his helmet off, and even through the slightly grainy footage and awkward angle, Becker recognises him instantly as he turns around, looking for the rest of the team.
It's Stephen.
Silence reigns in the ARC, and over the comms.
o o o o o
Things settled into a routine after Cutter's funeral, or as least as much as was possible. Stephen teamed up with Becker's least favourite ginger copper to take down a Giganotosaurus with nothing but a 'borrowed' motorcycle and helicopter between them, and then stepped up during the fungus epidemic, barking orders and running ahead of the pack with a modified hunting rifle and that same guarded, dangerous look on his face.
Becker was half-convinced Lester only promoted him to team leader to piss off Johnson.
But then Stephen did something that surprised everyone. Jenny's resignation had been a long time coming, and after being frozen almost to death she'd been on the verge of walking out of the ARC for good when Stephen took her by the arm and told her a story about a man who'd fallen for his thesis advisor, only to realise after she'd disappeared that even the people we put on pedestals were capable of lies and manipulation, and that even if the world was still fucked up in the end, it was always worth trying to stick around and fix things, because sometimes life wasn't shit.
As motivational speeches went, it was one of the most constipated versions Becker had ever heard – except for the part where it worked. Jenny stayed. Stephen, like Cutter before him, learned not to call or think of her as Claudia, and the team slowly came around to his taking over as team leader.
Becker accepted it quicker than most, but he didn't know Stephen's history. Not then.
o o o o o
There's an argument taking place about how Stephen's going to get back to the ARC, but Becker's only dimly aware of any of it. The pain in his leg is becoming almost unbearable – hardly surprising, really, given how much he's abused the injury in the space of a few short hours – and he's getting to the point that he doesn't care if anyone's watching him slowly lower himself back onto his chair, mentally raining down curses on everyone he can think of.
When he opens his eyes again, Jessica's watching him, her head tilted to one side. Normally she's like an open book, but under the current circumstances Becker thinks he can be forgiven for not being able to read her.
“Aren't you excited?” she asks eventually.
Becker just stares at her, then makes a point of rubbing the underside of his leg.
Instantly Jessica's expression turns sympathetic. “Do you want me to call down to the infirmary, see if they can give you something stronger?”
“It's fine,” Becker says. He hadn't been taking anything for it in the first place. He prefers the sharp edges of pain to the fuzzy-headedness drugs normally cause in him.
Jessica doesn't look convinced, and Becker's saved from having to come up with another response by the field team's comms activating again. He listens to Matt directing the two ARC vehicles through the security checkpoints and into the underground car park, a civilian motorcycle sandwiched between them. Becker squints at the much clearer security feeds displaying on Jessica's monitors and watches Stephen silently park and wait for the rest of the team to join him.
Becker's breathing is shallow, and it's not just because of his injury. He can't take his eyes off the security feed, where Connor and Abby are flanking Stephen on the short walk through the car park, Matt and Emerson following closely. The cameras aren't wired for sound – that's what the individual black boxes are for – but it's still obvious that Stephen hasn't said a word this whole time. Not at the anomaly site, not en route back to the ARC and not now.
Not for the first time Becker wonders what happened to Stephen on the other side of the anomaly, after Connor and Abby's reports said they'd been forced to split up in the Cretaceous to catch Helen. They'd only been able to speculate as to his fate, and the year they'd been missing had provided Becker with more than enough opportunities to map the possibilities.
Behind him Becker hears the lift doors on their level open, and pushes himself to his feet. And there, right there, coming into the main operations room is the team, alive and in one piece – later Becker will commend Emerson on a job well done – and in the middle of all of them is Stephen.
He's clad in a mixture of black and grey, nothing like the clothes Becker had last seen him in, but the backpack hanging off one shoulder hasn't changed. He's lean, with a few extra scars snaking up his neck and criss-crossing his hands, and there's a blank, heavily-guarded expression on his face.
Then his eyes meet Becker's, and Becker's pretty sure he's forgotten how to breathe by now. He limps forward, away from the relative safety of the chair. It's like he's being compelled to move, to make sure for himself that this is Stephen, and not one of Helen's clones, or a version of him from yet another timeline who doesn't know Becker, or the ARC or the hell that any of them have been through over the last year or more.
It occurs to him that perhaps Stephen is thinking the same thing, because he drops the backpack on the floor and in two, three quick strides meets Becker in the middle of the room and pulls him into a tight hug, arms locking him in place and Stephen's head buried at the crook of Becker's neck. The action is so familiar and Becker resolutely doesn't make a noise, just holds on and hopes like he's never hoped before that this is real, as real as anything can be in a place like the ARC.
He curls his fingers into Stephen's shirt and breathes. Around him he can feel Stephen do the same.
Fandom: Primeval
Summary: As much as he's happy that his friends are home and safe in their own time, he hates them for constantly reminding him by presence alone that they're still missing someone. That he's still missing someone.
Characters: Becker/Stephen, Jess, Matt, Connor, Abby, Lester; references to others
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3200
Beta:
fredbassettSpoilers: Through to episode 4.04
Warnings: Plays fast and loose with canon; bad language and sexual references.
Author's Notes:
lady_drace once posed the question: "What if Connor was stranded for a year with someone else?". This... doesn't answer that question, but certainly took inspiration from it. Quite possibly the most timey-wimey thing I've written in this fandom to date. Definitely the first instalment of a series. And with thanks to explodedpen for all the usual hand-holding and reassurances.On Becker's second day back at the ARC after the school incident, which so far has been the only way he can explain giant bite marks on his leg without Mum realising he's lying, he is restricted to light base-bound duty.
So far, he's transported requisition forms between Jessica's console and Lester's office and done a couple of tea runs for the sub-level technicians. On the way back up to the main ops room he has to duck into an empty laboratory just to catch his breath and check that his stitches haven't ruptured, or something.
It's only when he sees Jessica's look of girlish sympathy from her chair that he realises just how much he hates being restricted to base.
He doesn't have much time to indulge in hatred, though, because right then the anomaly alert goes off. It still sounds strange, even after several months in the new ARC, but it's just as loud. Out of deference to his impaired mobility, Becker hangs back as the rest of the team emerge from various corridors and doors to converge around Jess. Connor grips his arm briefly as he jogs past, Abby in close tow, and the sight of both of them together is another dull punch to Becker's gut. As much as he's happy that his friends are home and safe in their own time, he hates them for constantly reminding him by presence alone that they're still missing someone.
That he's still missing someone.
“Anomaly alert. Location is...”
“Location's what?” Matt asks.
For a few seconds all Becker hears is the sound of fingers on keyboards. “Nowhere. It's gone.”
“Gone?” Connor leans in. Becker's drawn closer as well.
“Has this ever happened before?” Jessica asks, leaning to one side to give Connor access to the terminal.
He shakes his head, and Becker can easily picture the frown. “Never known them to come and go this quickly. There's always been a few hours' give in them.” He looks up at Abby, who nods in agreement.
“Well, not this one.” Jessica takes over again. “Maybe it's a sign. You know, that they're slowing down.”
“Perhaps it's a sign you should all get back to work.” Lester appears from his office and glides over to join the half-circle around the computer terminal. “Assuming there's no anomaly for you all to chase, of course.”
Jessica confirms it. “No, it's gone.”
“We should check it out anyway; find out what happened,” Connor says.
Becker feels impotent, watching the scene play out and knowing that he's physically incapable of taking part in any plan the rest of the team come up with. He's only tried the mission control thing once since joining the ARC and it's not an experience he cares to replicate any time soon.
His leg twitches then, and Becker is acutely aware that if he tries to move again, his limp will show. Right now that's the last thing he wants, to show any more weakness and invite any more pity. He's reached his quota for the day, maybe even for the rest of his life.
He misses the end of the discussion about the anomaly-that-wasn't. Instead he watches everyone leave Jessica's terminal as quickly as they arrived, Connor brushing his arm lightly again as he passes by, a smile on his face and saying something that Becker doesn't quite catch.
The warmth and pressure from the brief contact on his arm stays long after Connor leaves.
Calling Stephen Hart's history in this timeline uneven was like saying Helen Cutter's time in the past had turned her a bit barmy. He'd died in Leek's warehouse, months before Becker had ever heard of the anomaly project, only to reappear six months later in the ARC's control room.
He'd shouted about clones and bombs – and only when he called Jenny 'Claudia' had Cutter taken notice. They'd stared at each other like they were both seeing ghosts, everyone else too stunned to move. Becker had stayed his ground as well, trying to assess an impossible situation.
It wouldn't have made any difference if he'd tried, though. That morning the anomaly detector sent the team chasing diictodons around a busy hospital, and that afternoon Helen Cutter and an army of clones stormed the ARC.
Later that afternoon, the anomaly alert goes off again. This time Becker's sat on a chair at the edge of Jessica's terminal, a hard-backed garishly coloured monstrosity that she carried out of Lester's office while he looked on in a pretence of disapproval. He makes sure to tuck his injured leg behind the other as the masses congregate. The last thing he wants is his cause of death to be listed as flattened by stampeding civilians.
“Anomaly's... sticking around this time,” Jessica reports cheerfully. “Industrial estate just over thirty miles out.” She looks up at Matt for the final part of the spiel. “I'll forward you exact co-ordinates when I have them.”
“Right you are.” He's already moving, and so are Connor and Abby. Becker beckons the sergeant in his unit over – she'll be taking point in the field in his absence – and makes sure she knows exactly what to do out there. Keep the team safe whatever the consequences, and let nothing and nobody through the anomaly.
They're hard-won protocols, and each time he repeats or enacts them, Becker has to remind himself of what happens when he doesn't.
He stopped pretending it wasn't personal months ago, after the regime change and the introduction of Philip Burton, Matthew Anderson and Jessica Parker into his working life. They're good protocols. Sound. Safe.
Jessica flashes another smile at him while she switches between keyboards and monitors in front of her. Somewhere in the background Lester looks bored, but a year and more of exposure means Becker knows where to look for tension and repressed anger.
He watches the computer hone in on the exact location of the anomaly-that-is.
Becker almost forgets to wish this will be the one Stephen Hart comes home through.
Becker was still at the hospital rounding up the diictodons when a phone call came from a dead man: Stephen told him in no uncertain terms to keep Cutter away from the ARC. All morning Stephen had acted as if he'd known and worked alongside Becker for weeks already, and it was that assuredness above anything else that made Becker move to obey the order.
Neither of them had counted on Cutter, though. Whatever history lay between him and Stephen, whatever had happened in Leek's warehouse that hadn't made it to the official reports, Cutter had stormed out of the hospital, leaving Becker to quite literally hold the baby, and gone straight back to the ARC.
Everything that happened after that Becker learned as third hand knowledge. Cutter had come face to face with his ex-wife and a cloned, subservient version of himself, and shut Stephen out completely when he tried to make the professor leave, the rest of the team having already been evacuated.
The clone blew up the ARC, with itself at the epicentre, and Stephen had dragged Cutter out of the ARC, only to be punched in the face and left in the car park while Cutter went back to find Helen, only to be shot for his trouble.
Despite Stephen's best efforts, he lost Cutter for a third time, and everyone else was left to wonder what would happen next.
Forty minutes later all hell breaks loose.
Matt and Sergeant Emerson are talking over the comms, bitching about some sort of roadblock that's slowing everything down and preventing them from reaching the anomaly site. Emerson wants to use some a siren to get the two ARC vehicles through quicker while Matt wants to remain unobtrusive. In the background there are various engine noises and the sounds of Connor and Abby talking quietly, deliberately trying to avoid being overheard by the rest of the team.
Then there's another noise, one that's unmistakeable. Something roars, instantly drowning out every other noise coming through the comms, and Becker's instincts are thrown into high alert. Leg be damned, he's up and leaning over Jessica's shoulder as the reports start coming in.
Underneath the static and panic – they've abandoned the vehicles and are tracking the anomaly on foot – information on events starts trickling back to the ARC. Becker tries not to override Emerson's now-cautious instructions to her team, but it's difficult, especially when Jessica hacks into the estate's CCTV network and he can see exactly what's happening out there.
A minute later, a greyish blur moves across one screen, and Matt announces he's got the creature – a lone velociraptor – in his sights, and takes off with an EMD while Emerson's team fans around to provide cover.
But it's not how he would do it, not even close, and it's only when Becker's fingers start to really hurt that he realises he's been gripping Jessica's chair tightly enough she can't swivel around to the secondary monitors. Inwardly mortified, he lets go of the chair and steps back, nearly missing his step and hissing when he puts too much pressure on his bad leg and stumbles.
“You all right, Becker?” Matt asks over the comm.
Becker splays his fingers over the back of his leg and wishes he could shoot something – with a proper gun, not those damned taser-like monstrosities Matt designed.
And now even Jessica is looking at him with wide-eyed compassion over the back of her chair. “I'm fine,” he grinds out. “Just tell me you've got the bloody situation under control!”
“Sir.” Emerson sounds wary – well, it's not every day her boss is base-bound and foul-mouthed, and up until now Becker's been able to contain his frustration.
“Sergeant.” Becker lets his voice drip with as much restrained anger as he can. “Anomaly. Contain it.”
“Yes, sir. I – what the hell was that?”
What the hell was what? Becker limps forward to the terminal again, leaning on Jessica's chair with both hands as she and everyone else try to find out what caught Emerson's attention.
“Just a motorcyclist.” Matt sounds either disappointed or relieved. It's hard to tell with him, sometimes. “Someone get him out of here.”
It's easier said than done. The CCTV coverage on Jessica's screens is fractured, but even Becker can tell the motorcyclist is up to something. Instead of leaving the immediate area – where a time portal and a real life dinosaur are – it looks almost like he's circling the site, as if he –
Becker's breath catches in his throat. The motorcyclist is herding the dinosaur back to the anomaly – or if not he's doing a bloody good impression of it.
And more than that – he's seen that behaviour before.
“Oh, my...” Connor sounds as shocked as Becker feels. “No way.”
“What?” Becker can hear Jessica's frown, even from behind her. “I don't understand – what's going on, guys? I need to know.”
“He made it back,” Connor says. “It's Stephen!”
The day after Cutter had been killed by his ex-wife and her pet clone of him, Stephen showed up at Becker's front door, smelling of alcohol and with a dangerous look on his face.
Becker hadn't bothered to ask how he'd slipped past the ARC's security patrols; he'd just stood aside to let him in. Stephen's ease at being around him was still unsettling, and it left Becker trailing in his wake, not something he was used to.
Stephen sat on the back of Becker's sofa, watching him with that same dark, unreadable expression, and looking back, Becker could pinpoint the exact moment he lost any semblance of control. That would have been when Stephen backed him onto his bed and fucked him into the mattress.
There had been no emotional connection, nothing to indicate that Stephen had done this with Becker before, but he took and took and Becker let him.
He knew the anatomy of grief well enough.
For the first time since the second anomaly alert went off, the comms fall silent. Everyone is considering the implications of Connor's pronouncement. The lump in Becker's throat shows no sign of going anywhere, and when the motorcyclist appears on-screen again he has to remind himself to breathe.
“Do you think it's really him?” Jessica's the first one to speak. Her eyes are glued to the screens even as she turns her head in Becker's general direction. “That it's Stephen Hart?”
Becker shakes his head. “I don't know,” he says, realising an answer is expected of him.
He tries not to think about who else it could he. He doesn't want it to be anybody else, he realises.
Just then the lone camera angle that Jessica's got on the anomaly shows the velociraptor running back through it, and on the screen immediately to the left, the motorcyclist comes to a stop, pulls something out of what looks like a rucksack, and aims it at the anomaly.
The anomaly closes immediately.
The motorcyclist then pulls his helmet off, and even through the slightly grainy footage and awkward angle, Becker recognises him instantly as he turns around, looking for the rest of the team.
It's Stephen.
Silence reigns in the ARC, and over the comms.
Things settled into a routine after Cutter's funeral, or as least as much as was possible. Stephen teamed up with Becker's least favourite ginger copper to take down a Giganotosaurus with nothing but a 'borrowed' motorcycle and helicopter between them, and then stepped up during the fungus epidemic, barking orders and running ahead of the pack with a modified hunting rifle and that same guarded, dangerous look on his face.
Becker was half-convinced Lester only promoted him to team leader to piss off Johnson.
But then Stephen did something that surprised everyone. Jenny's resignation had been a long time coming, and after being frozen almost to death she'd been on the verge of walking out of the ARC for good when Stephen took her by the arm and told her a story about a man who'd fallen for his thesis advisor, only to realise after she'd disappeared that even the people we put on pedestals were capable of lies and manipulation, and that even if the world was still fucked up in the end, it was always worth trying to stick around and fix things, because sometimes life wasn't shit.
As motivational speeches went, it was one of the most constipated versions Becker had ever heard – except for the part where it worked. Jenny stayed. Stephen, like Cutter before him, learned not to call or think of her as Claudia, and the team slowly came around to his taking over as team leader.
Becker accepted it quicker than most, but he didn't know Stephen's history. Not then.
There's an argument taking place about how Stephen's going to get back to the ARC, but Becker's only dimly aware of any of it. The pain in his leg is becoming almost unbearable – hardly surprising, really, given how much he's abused the injury in the space of a few short hours – and he's getting to the point that he doesn't care if anyone's watching him slowly lower himself back onto his chair, mentally raining down curses on everyone he can think of.
When he opens his eyes again, Jessica's watching him, her head tilted to one side. Normally she's like an open book, but under the current circumstances Becker thinks he can be forgiven for not being able to read her.
“Aren't you excited?” she asks eventually.
Becker just stares at her, then makes a point of rubbing the underside of his leg.
Instantly Jessica's expression turns sympathetic. “Do you want me to call down to the infirmary, see if they can give you something stronger?”
“It's fine,” Becker says. He hadn't been taking anything for it in the first place. He prefers the sharp edges of pain to the fuzzy-headedness drugs normally cause in him.
Jessica doesn't look convinced, and Becker's saved from having to come up with another response by the field team's comms activating again. He listens to Matt directing the two ARC vehicles through the security checkpoints and into the underground car park, a civilian motorcycle sandwiched between them. Becker squints at the much clearer security feeds displaying on Jessica's monitors and watches Stephen silently park and wait for the rest of the team to join him.
Becker's breathing is shallow, and it's not just because of his injury. He can't take his eyes off the security feed, where Connor and Abby are flanking Stephen on the short walk through the car park, Matt and Emerson following closely. The cameras aren't wired for sound – that's what the individual black boxes are for – but it's still obvious that Stephen hasn't said a word this whole time. Not at the anomaly site, not en route back to the ARC and not now.
Not for the first time Becker wonders what happened to Stephen on the other side of the anomaly, after Connor and Abby's reports said they'd been forced to split up in the Cretaceous to catch Helen. They'd only been able to speculate as to his fate, and the year they'd been missing had provided Becker with more than enough opportunities to map the possibilities.
Behind him Becker hears the lift doors on their level open, and pushes himself to his feet. And there, right there, coming into the main operations room is the team, alive and in one piece – later Becker will commend Emerson on a job well done – and in the middle of all of them is Stephen.
He's clad in a mixture of black and grey, nothing like the clothes Becker had last seen him in, but the backpack hanging off one shoulder hasn't changed. He's lean, with a few extra scars snaking up his neck and criss-crossing his hands, and there's a blank, heavily-guarded expression on his face.
Then his eyes meet Becker's, and Becker's pretty sure he's forgotten how to breathe by now. He limps forward, away from the relative safety of the chair. It's like he's being compelled to move, to make sure for himself that this is Stephen, and not one of Helen's clones, or a version of him from yet another timeline who doesn't know Becker, or the ARC or the hell that any of them have been through over the last year or more.
It occurs to him that perhaps Stephen is thinking the same thing, because he drops the backpack on the floor and in two, three quick strides meets Becker in the middle of the room and pulls him into a tight hug, arms locking him in place and Stephen's head buried at the crook of Becker's neck. The action is so familiar and Becker resolutely doesn't make a noise, just holds on and hopes like he's never hoped before that this is real, as real as anything can be in a place like the ARC.
He curls his fingers into Stephen's shirt and breathes. Around him he can feel Stephen do the same.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-27 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-28 10:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-28 10:09 am (UTC)Grouchy Becker in pain is always wonderful, and Stephen's return was fabulous!
Great story.
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Date: 2011-05-28 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-28 10:15 am (UTC)Gorgeous. I love how you wrote it with the flasbacks and from Becker's POV, feeling so helpless and standing by without being able to do something properly.
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Date: 2011-05-28 10:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-28 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-28 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-29 02:50 pm (UTC)It's awesome fic -- dark, intense and timey-wimey. I hope there's going to be more!
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Date: 2011-05-29 03:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-30 04:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 10:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-06 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 01:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-23 09:16 pm (UTC)Great basis for a fic.
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Date: 2012-03-23 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-06 09:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-12-07 06:01 pm (UTC)