tli_productions | Fic: Dipt Into the Future

Title: Dipt Into the Future
Fandom: Primeval

Summary: Stephen had never believed in second chances - until time literally changed everything.

Characters: Becker/Stephen, Matt, Connor, Abby, Jess; references to and cameos by others.
Rating: PG-13
Length: ~3500
Beta:

fredbassett

Spoilers: Through 4.04

Warnings: A few swear words and sexual references.

Author's Notes: Second in a series, following from React to Contact. Still a bit timey-wimey, but with the best possible intentions. With thanks to

explodedpen for being her usual awesome self.

o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall

o o o o o

Stephen had never put much stock in second chances. They never actually changed anything, just left you with a queasy sense of déjà-vu and the sensation of someone looking over your shoulder, waiting for you to screw up all over again. He thought he'd learned his lesson that day in the Forest of Dean, with Helen's smug denouement and the dull look in Nick's eyes that had never gone away.

And then Nick had died and Stephen hadn't even had that guilt hanging over him any more. He should have been free, at least from his own demons, if not from the accusing glares of the rest of the team – why couldn't he have been the one to die instead? – but it wasn't enough. It was never going to be enough.

So when the time came, he did what he could. The only thing he could do.

The only thing he would always do.

o o o o o

Stephen showers slowly and methodically, savouring the sensation of hot pressurised, clean water. The back of his neck is starting to burn and his chest and arms are tingling, almost vibrating. He's mindful of the injury to his side; he's managed to keep it infection free this far and he doesn't plan on ruining that record by getting over-zealous with the shower gel.

He's given up on thinking. The last two days have been a whirl of greenery and wildlife and deadlines and he'd made it, finally made it home and Hilary and it's all more than he can process right now. So he focuses on the layers of dirt in the creases and folds of his skin and recoiling at the smell of carbolic soap after months without.

There's a clean change of clothes waiting for him when he finally steps out of the cubicle, steam spreading everywhere. Clothes – and a first aid kit. Someone's been watching him and they've either noticed the open wound or they're providing for the possibility. The trousers are loose when he pulls them up, and they feel wrong somehow. They look like the trousers Stephen's spent more than a year living in, but they're not; he can feel it in the loose waistline and pressed legs and the way they itch around his thighs.

He considers the contents of the first aid kit. There's enough in there to redress the wound and prevent the sides from moving and he does so before pulling on and buttoning up the provided shirt. It feels just as wrong as the trousers, but it beats walking around naked or in filthy clothing.

There's a soldier waiting at the door to the shower room, a woman about Stephen's age that he doesn't recognise. She nods at him and motions down the corridor. With the size of her weapon, and the sound of other soldiers in the distance, disobedience isn't exactly an option.

Aside from the military contingent, Stephen can't hear anything else, and he realises it's the way this new ARC has been designed. The doors operate on hydraulics and everything looks hermetically sealed from everything else.

He's led to a small room with a table, two chairs and one-way glass masquerading as a mirror dominating one wall. The soldier waits until he walks inside and chooses a chair before stepping outside and closing the door without actually touching anything.

Stephen sits, and watches the one-way glass. He has an idea of who's on the other side, but enough is different already that he won't commit to his suspicions. He does wonder if Hilary's there, watching him. Stephen can still feel the contact points from the hug, knows instinctively that the sense of overload from that simple contact will take forever to die down. He doesn't think he wants it to.

It's been far too long.

The door opens, and the team leader from the industrial estate walks in. He's carrying two manila folders and his face is as expressionless as it had been before. Without introduction or fanfare he sits on the other side of the table from Stephen, sets the files between them and places a small black box beside them. It's the same one Stephen's seen the others wearing on their belts, and he can only infer it's some kind of recording device; perhaps even something as simple as a radio.

“Stephen Hart,” the man says. He has a Northern Irish inflection, and a tone as emotionless as his face.

Stephen glances at the box, but says nothing.

The silence doesn't seem to faze the other man. “It's a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Hart. I'm Matthew Anderson. People call me Matt.”

Matt by name, Matt by nature.

“So tell me,” Matt continues, “what happened to you. Connor and Abby reported last seeing you in the Cretaceous, chasing Helen Cutter through a third anomaly that closed behind you.”

Helen stood opposite Stephen on a cliff face at the beginning of the world. She waved her arms about and spouted off about her grand plan to save humanity by destroying it. At least she'd stopped blaming Nick for the end of everything.

“You shouldn't have come back, Stephen,” she told him. “You were better off dead. You both were.”

“Helen Cutter,” Matt prompts.

Stephen blinks away the memory. “Dead,” he says. He's surprised it comes out right; aside from the occasional lapse he hasn't spoken in months. There's been nobody to talk to, and no point giving the wildlife any extra indicators as to his location.

If Matt's surprised that Stephen's finally said something, he doesn't show it.

“Sure about that?”

“Yes.”

Matt barely hesitates before nodding. “And then what?”

Stephen shrugs. “And then I came back here.”

“Not a big fan of details, are you, Stephen – may I call you Stephen?”

Stephen shrugs again. This time the movement catches the newly applied dressings, and with them the wound, and he winces.

“How bad is the injury?” Matt asks immediately, eyes on Stephen's side. “Do you need a medic?”

“Looks worse than it is.”

“How did it happen?”

This part of the game Stephen recognises. “Dinner fought back,” he says calmly.

Something that looks suspiciously like a smirk appears on Matt's face. “Prehistoric chicken?”

“More like a future evolution of a cockroach,” Stephen replies, and Matt's eyes widen for a fraction of a second. It's an interesting reaction, not what Stephen expected, and he files it away for possible future reference.

Eventually Matt nods again. “How did Helen Cutter die?”

Stephen stared down at the lifeless body of the woman he thought he'd loved, once. Time changed everything, and it had changed Helen more than anyone.

Beside Helen was a velociraptor, its neck twisted and blood coming out from where it had impacted Helen, and the ground.

Stephen knelt down between the bodies and wondered what to do next. He supposed this meant it was all over – both preventing Helen's mad crusade and running, constantly running after her despite the experience of every time that had gone badly in the past. He reached out and gently closed Helen's eyelids.

Stephen shrugs. “Fell off a cliff.”

“Anti-climatic,” Matt comments.

“Not really,” Stephen says. “You didn't know her.”

Matt leans forward in his chair, all pretence of boredom and impartiality gone. “Do you wish you could have saved her?”

Stephen lifts his head up and looks Matt right in the eyes. “No.”

Matt stares at him, and whatever he sees in Stephen's face has to be enough, because he just nods and sits back in his seat again. “This isn't your original time line. Is it the same one you left fourteen months ago?”

“Give me ten minutes with an internet search engine and I'll tell you,” Stephen says, because it's easier than playing with pop culture references, if he could remember any off the top of his head. Hilary's tastes ran a little more obscure than most, and Stephen had spent more time there than anywhere else since crossing time lines. He remembers the contents of Hilary's bookshelves and DVD racks, but he didn't think anyone besides the two of them would recognise the names.

At that, Matt finally smiles. “The device you used to close the anomaly earlier,” he says. “Where did you find it?”

Stephen stared at the remains of the computer in front of him – and the rusted torch sitting in the debris beside it. The scene looked like it hadn't been disturbed in years, though rationally Stephen knows it's been ten months since he was last here. Then he had Abby and Connor – Connor who was able to use torch batteries to power a futuristic supercomputer.

There was a sinking feeling in his gut, and Stephen knew it was going to take a lot longer for him to copy Connor's feat – to find a way home.

“Same place we first followed Helen to.”

Matt nods. “The future version of the ARC.”

“One of them.” Stephen shrugs again. The anomalies weren't all linear; Ryan and the Permian had taught them that the hard way.

“And how long were you there?”

“Only as long as I needed to be.”

“Find anything else while you were there?” Matt asks, and Stephen wonders if these questions are being fed to him – and wonders again who's watching them from the other side of the glass.

He knows what he didn't find in the future, but he considers the question anyway. “Dust, rubble and myself at the top of every future predator's menu.”

Matt blinks, and Stephen thinks he might be trying to convey disapproval. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but hesitates. Then he says: “You used the anomaly mapping technology to find a way home.”

It's not a question, but Stephen nods anyway. “Would have been back sooner if I'd had Connor with me.” Normally he'd aim for flippant, but he's lucky he's capable of simple speech at the moment, and facial expressions are probably out as well, so he settles for cocking his head slightly to get the point across.

Matt seems to get the joke. “That's it for now, Stephen. We're willing to offer you the same deal as Connor as Abby when they first got back – a place on the field team if you want it, and at the very least back pay to help you set yourself up if you choose to leave the ARC.”

“I'll think about it.”

Matt nods. “Take your time.” He stands up, and motions towards the door. Stephen takes the cue and follows him out of the interrogation room and through a short maze of squeaky-clean corridors until they reach something that reminds Stephen of the break room from the ARC he remembers.

A few minutes later they're joined by Connor, Abby, Hilary and the girl from the operations room, whose name Stephen hasn't learned or overheard yet. Hilary's covering for a bad limp, and the actions are both alien and familiar at the same time. The emotions in his eyes are definitely familiar, and Stephen moves aside to give Hilary access to a chair without it looking like an act of sympathy, which he takes. Stephen perches on the edge of the table beside him, his hands behind him for support, and is aware of Hilary resting an arm on the table so that their fingers almost, but don't quite, touch.

“This,” Connor begins, “is brilliant!”

“And how do you figure that?” Stephen asks.

Connor beams, and beside him Abby's expression is soft, almost indulgent. “We're all home,” he says, as if that was obvious from the start.

Stephen nods.

“This is Jess, by the way,” Matt interjects, motioning towards the sixth member of the group. “She runs the ARC's operations.”

“Hi,” Jess says. She sounds bright and perky. “It's so good to finally meet you, Dr Hart.”

“Stephen's fine,” Stephen replies quickly.

At the same time Hilary says: “Jessica's read the mission reports from the first ARC.”

“Not all of them!” Jess protests. “Just enough to find out who you all were.” She glances from Hilary to Stephen and back again. “Are you two...”

“Yeah,” Abby says.

“Totally!” Connor beams.

Stephen looks down at Hilary, who raises his eyebrows in return. “Yes,” Stephen says. “We are.”

o o o o o

The first time Stephen had met Captain Becker had been a bad day. It had been six weeks since Nick's funeral, and Stephen had yet to manage a full night's sleep. The nightmares, guilt and self-loathing took care of that quite nicely.

Every time he closed his eyes he saw Nick, stubborn jaw set and the cuts on his face bleeding as he locked himself inside Leek's menagerie, ignoring Stephen's desperate pounding on the door and his yells that turned into pleas that eventually turned into choked tears as Stephen watched the man who had once been his best friend get torn to shreds.

Stephen had known why he'd done it – the knowledge of Stephen and Helen's rekindled affair, as stupid in hindsight as that move had been had been the tipping point and Stephen had wilfully missed all the warning signs leading up to that day in the warehouse.

And then Lester had pulled him aside after the funeral, put him in charge of the field team, and watched from a distance as Stephen forced himself to re-ingratiate himself with people who openly blamed him for Nick's death.

And then, six weeks later, Captain Becker walked into his life. At first sight Stephen hated him. He was young and uptight and monotone, and not something Stephen needed on his team. Stephen deliberately kept him at arm's length through everything, up until the day Nick had walked through the halls of the ARC as if nothing had changed. As if he'd never died.

He turned out to be a clone, Helen's little puppet and one of the cruellest things Stephen had never thought she'd be capable of. And then the clone had looked Stephen right in the eye, even while his finger was on the trigger for the bomb.

“Stephen, run.”

And Stephen did. Out of the ARC, and then back inside against Becker's protests. He chased Helen through the ARC and an anomaly and another one and another one and eventually he'd found himself back where he'd started that morning – except for one huge, unbelievable difference.

Nick was alive.

Until he wasn't.

Stephen found it easier to deal with the Becker of this new time line because as far as the soldier was concerned, they'd never met before. It was as close to a clean slate as Stephen was ever going to get.

And if he took advantage of that second chance? Well, Stephen was only human.

o o o o o

Things dissipate quickly in the break room. Matt disappears to meet with Lester. Jess has diagnostics to run, though she calms down once Stephen explains he was the cause of the first anomaly she'd detected that morning. She still insists on the tests, and disappears with one last smile in Hilary's direction. Connor and Abby fill up a Thermos flask and leave for Connor's lab, where he's been assigned the anomaly closing device Stephen had used to map his way home.

Once everyone's gone and he thinks they're unlikely to be overheard, Stephen looks down at Hilary again. “I see things haven't changed too much.”

Hilary snorts. “Wait until you meet Burton,” he replies. “The ARC's part-privatised now, and Lester fancies him as something of an arch-nemesis.”

“Anything else I should know?” Stephen asks quietly.

“Yes.” Hilary doesn't say anything for a minute, and Stephen waits until he's ready. “Sarah's dead.”

Stephen closes his eyes briefly. “How?”

“Looking for the three of you.” Hilary shakes his head sharply. “I'll find you the reports, I -”

“You were there.” Stephen moves his hand and brushes his fingers against Hilary's.

Hilary nods. He doesn't pull his fingers away. “Danny and Jenny quit not long after.”

Stephen can understand that sentiment. He thinks Claudia would have done the same, if she still existed.

“I've had enough of this place for one day,” Hilary says suddenly. He levers himself carefully to his feet. “Come on.”

“Are you safe to drive?”

“I'm not a bloody child!” Hilary snaps.

Stephen chooses his next words carefully. “I know. You're injured. I'll drive.”

For a split second Hilary looks affronted, but then he nods. He makes a beeline for the lifts, and Stephen follows, letting him set the pace. Hilary maintains the tough man façade up to the car park, and all the way to the flat that's the closest thing Stephen has to a home any more.

As soon as the front door closes behind them, Hilary sags and allows Stephen to manoeuvre him to the sofa. He hisses as the weight is lifted off his injured leg.

Stephen sits on the coffee table so that he's directly facing him. “Still not taking painkillers?”

“Overrated,” Hilary grimaces.

Stephen knows better than to push the point, and settles for just looking at Hilary. The fourteen months Stephen's been away show on the soldier's face and in his posture. It's as though he's aged fourteen years instead.

Unlike Hilary, the flat hasn't changed a bit. There's an extra bookshelf in the corner, half full of paperbacks, but it's the only difference Stephen can see.

“Been reading anything interesting?” he asks, his eyes on the books. He thinks he recognises a few of the authors, can probably even guess what some of them are about from the occasional evening spent reading over Hilary's shoulder in bed.

Hilary shrugs. “Not as much as I used to.”

Stephen rubs the back of his neck and considers that answer. “I just thought -”

“You just thought what, Stephen? That without you showing up most nights and fucking me I'd slip right back into old habits? That my life the last year or more has been so pathetic, so goddamned lonely that I -” Hilary breaks off and sucks in a loud breath.

“I'm sorry,” Stephen says. He only has half an idea of what he's apologising for.

Hilary laughs, and rubs his hands over his face. Then he looks at Stephen, his face as bare and open as Stephen has ever seen it. “I thought you were dead. Jesus, Stephen, I thought you were fucking dead.”

Finally, Stephen gets it. He ignores every instinct in his body that tells him prolonged contact could get him killed, and slides onto the sofa to wrap Hilary in another tight hug. “I'm sorry,” he whispers into his shoulder.

Eventually Hilary relaxes into the embrace.

o o o o o

Stephen lay on top of the bed covers and watched. Becker was sitting at the foot of the bed, hunched over and cleaning his weapon, small, precise movements. It wasn't necessary, he hadn't had to shoot anything today, but still he went through the motions. It was a coping mechanism, one Stephen could appreciate.

Eventually Becker finished, securing the dismantled gun in its case and sliding it underneath the bed. Only then did he look over, considering Stephen as if he'd only just noticed he was there. Stephen bit back a smile – his white dinner suit, torn and dirtied from a day's running around with Phorusracos, didn't exactly go well with clean bedsheets. Rather than protest, or insist that Stephen strip off the dirty clothes, Becker just climbed onto the bed and stretched out beside Stephen, looking him dead in the eye for the first time that day.

And then he asked the question Stephen had been waiting for him to ask for weeks.

“What happened in your original time line?”

It was more than anything they'd ever said or done to each other up until now, and for a brief, dizzying moment, Stephen realised he could have told Becker anything. Wiped his slate clean, glossed over the crap, even made himself the hero for a change.

He also knew that Becker deserved more than that. Especially after today, and all he'd done for Lester, and the team. Especially after what he'd done for Stephen.

So Stephen did the only thing he could do.

He looked Becker in the eye and told him the truth.