tli_productions | Fic: Retrograde Becker (2/3)

Header information and notes contained in Part 1.

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

2

Lester refuses Hilary's request to visit the shooting range.

He doesn't even let Hilary plead something resembling a case; nor does he react to the pout.

“Well, there's got to be something I can do to pass the time around here.” Hilary's pretty sure this is sulking. He doesn't care.

Lester sighs. “Cap... Mr Becker -”

“I've got a name, you know.”

Lester pinches the bridge of his nose. “Look. The doctors tell me that you remain mentally impaired. Tell me why I would let someone like that anywhere near automatic weaponry?”

Hilary opens his mouth.

“On second thought, don't.”

Hilary stares at the pink mug beside Lester's computer. Eventually Lester caves. It's a glorious sight.

“Tell Jess to give you access to your mission reports. Just yours.”

Hilary grins. “You're the best.”

Lester grimaces.

“Too much?”

Lester just looks pained, so Hilary decides to leave the office.

It's a relief not to be dragging around the IV pole any more, but Dr Thomas had decided he'd be better off without it for now. The clothes were brought out soon after that pronouncement, and he's wearing jeans and a red-checked shirt. They seem totally wrong, because if he's supposed to be a military captain, shouldn't he be in uniform?

It's one more thing to ask Jess. Which he does, seeing as she's sat at a massive computer terminal that make Hilary's eyes ache just trying to count the number of monitors.

She looks sympathetic, and hesitates before answering. “Technically you resigned.”

“Resigned?”

Jess purses her lips. “From the army, after the ARC was reopened. It's part-privatised now, and one of the mandates Burton introduced was no direct military involvement.” She shrugs, but whatever message that was supposed to convey is lost on Hilary.

He settles for: “Oh.”

Lines of text crop up on one of the monitors. Hilary finds himself drawn to the almost hypnotic movement even though he has genuinely no idea what any of it means. He suspects it may be something he doesn't understand as a general rule anyway. He's trying to work out if he's okay with that when Jess quietly clears her throat.

“Becker?”

Hilary flinches, tearing his gaze away from the monitors. “Sorry?”

“Was there something you needed?” she asks gently.

Oh, right. This is a place of work. They're working. Hilary feels the tips of his ears start to burn. “I, er... Lester said to ask you for my mission reports. It might... help.”

“Oh!” Jess' face lights up and she whirls around to the mass of computers. She types furiously for a few seconds, then twists back around to look at Hilary. “Paper or digital copies?”

“Paper,” Hilary says automatically.

Jess smirks and does one final sweep over the keyboards. “Come on,” she announces. “I'll show you where your office is.”

He has an office? Cool.

His office is surprisingly cold, but apparently he had planned for this as there is a quite frankly ridiculous number of fleece jackets hanging up behind the door.

“The heating's iffy,” Jess offers by way of an explanation. “If you need anything, I think Connor's in his lab, it's just around the corner from here.”

“Thank you,” Hilary says.

Jess points at a spot behind Hilary's shoulder. “Print outs of your mission reports should appear any moment now,” she explains before ducking out and letting the door hiss closed behind her.

Hilary stares around the room. Whatever he'd been expecting on the way down here... this isn't it. The walls are bare aside from a solitary noticeboard with details of training exercises and armoury supplies spread across several small pieces of paper. The desk is impossibly tidy and – his heart falls just a little – there are no personal identifiers anywhere.

He'd at least been hoping for a photo of his elusive – and hopefully non-monstrous – family.

The printer beeps, and Hilary scoops the paper up before sitting down. The first page details something called a Pristichampsus running riot at the British Museum. He stares at the jargon, the words just familiar enough to make him feel like the meanings are on the tip of his tongue. His old self is particularly caustic about someone named Nick Cutter, who has a less than healthy respect for his orders, but is grudgingly neutral about a Dr Sarah Page.

The name makes him shiver. He stands up and crosses over to the door and snags a random fleece. It really is rather cold in here.

He shrugs on the jacket and tries to not feel depressed about the lack of personal effects, family – and what is a seriously Spartan working environment.

“You know, you can put things that aren't functional in your own office.”

A woman's voice flits across his thoughts; it almost sounds like she's laughing.

Sarah, his mind supplies.

Hilary looks back at the pile of reports. He feels strangely uncomfortable at the idea of reading any more. Like there's a pit at the bottom of his stomach and he...

He tells himself to get a grip. If there's anything really bad in the reports, he'll be fine because he's already lived through it once. He tells himself that a few more times as he makes himself sit back down and pick a random piece of paper.

Dr Sarah Page was killed attempting to locate Danny Quinn, Connor Temple and Abby Maitland in the future wasteland.

Hilary moves on instinct; he pulls out a bin from underneath the desk and dry heaves into it.

He waits, frozen over the bin, gripping it like the lifeline it apparently is.

Sarah.

He closes his eyes.

There's a lump in his eyes and for the first time he has zero desire to ever know the truth about his old self. No possessions, a family that made his colleagues look anywhere but his face, and the scant memory of a woman who's making a lump rise in his throat along with the after burn of not-quite vomiting.

It is of course, because his life seems to work like that (and part of him wonders if it was always like this, Sod's Law in action at all possible times), at this precise moment when his door bursts open.

“Hey! They told me you were hiding do...”

Hilary barely registers the voice, or the way it trails off mid-sentence, but he definitely notices the hands that appear on his shoulders and the instinctual feeling that someone is getting right into his -

He struggles out of the grip, pushes the bin forwards and into his assailant and gets as close as he can to the wall. Somewhere in between all of this, he opens his eyes.

Standing in front of him is a man with curly hair, wearing faded grey jeans and a blue button-down shirt, and holding the bin Hilary had pushed at him.

And he looks confused.

“Hilary?” the man asks. He sets the bin down carefully and holds his hands out, palms facing Hilary.

Hilary stares and tries to get his breathing under control.

“Panic attack, huh?” The man grins crookedly. “My bad, shouldn't have come barging in like that. You okay now?”

“I...” Hilary's throat is dry. “Who are you?”

But even as he asks, there are flashes of memories. A boy looming over him with a bucket in one hand, holding the other out to help him stand up. The same boy, now an adult, in a top hat and tails, pulling a face and shifting from one foot to the other. A man smiling at him, trying to reassure him?

“Giles,” Hilary says.

Brother.

“Yeah.” Giles smiles – widely, more genuinely this time. “What was that, a flashback? Looked like a bad one. You wanna sit down, tell me what happened?”

“I...” Hilary steps closer to the chair, but doesn't sit down. “I don't really remember.”

“Okay,” Giles says reassuringly.

He doesn't get it. Hilary frowns. There's too much going on here; his head is starting to hurt again, worse this time, more intense and Gileshisbrother doesn't understand.

“I hit my head,” Hilary says slowly. “Earlier. Badly. I... don't really remember anything.”

Understanding dawns on Giles' face.

“And I thought you were freaks, or there was something wrong with me.” Hilary's babbling now, but he can't stop himself. “Nobody will tell me anything except I hunt dinosaurs and make tea and what kind of person doesn't even have a photo in their office and -” He looks up, slightly panicky. “Dinosaurs. Was I supposed to not say that?”

Giles' face is indecipherable. Then he smiles slightly. “Yeah, I know about that. It's okay.”

“Oh, good.”

“Just keep breathing, yeah? That's it, nice and slow now.” Giles waits for him to calm down some more before he says: “There's nothing wrong with you, Hilary. Mum's got a bit of a rep with the soldiers, and I'm pretty sure everyone's still scarred from the Westminster anomaly, but it's nothing bad, okay?”

“What's the Westminster anomaly?”

Giles grins. “Dinosaurs in the seat of British politics. I sort of helped.” There's a sheepish look on his face, and when Hilary frowns, he sighs and continues. “I was on the verge of leaving dog poo in my ex-boss' office when someone ran down the corridor screaming about dinosaurs. Followed quickly by you. So I -”

“- sort of helped,” Hilary says. He doesn't remember any of that, but he knows without questioning it that Giles is telling the truth. It's good, he thinks, knowing that.

“Yeah,” Giles says. Then: “They really didn't tell you anything about the family?”

Hilary shakes his head.

“Okay, right.” Giles nudges past Hilary to sit down at the computer, and inputs IDs and passwords without hesitating.

Hilary frowns, but before he can ask anything, Giles explains: “You've used the same password for everything since secondary school. Sadly, not that hard to crack.”

“Oh.” It's probably a good thing, really, considering the current circumstances.

“Anyway,” Giles turns the monitor and angles it so Hilary can see the screen better. “Hilary Becker, this is your life!”

Hilary frowns again, but peers at the screen. It's full of small photographs, and he points at the first one. “Start at the beginning?”

Giles' smile widens, and he begins introducing Hilary to a family he only vaguely remembers.

o o o o o

Hilary's head is buzzing by the time they take a break. Giles, thankfully, seems to know the way back to the break room, although there's something unnerving about the way he scans the hallways, frowning in disappointment at something.

“Are you all right?” Hilary asks as Giles pushes open the door to the break room.

“I'm fine,” Giles replies, glancing around the room. “But shouldn't that be my line?”

Hilary shrugs. “I'm fine? My head hurts.”

“Family will do that,” says Giles, striding over to the kettle and filling it up with water. “Lots of history. Still, you should be able to pick us all out of a line up now.” There's a teasing note to his tone and a sense of warm familiarity washes over Hilary.

“I can make the tea,” he offers, watching Giles pull two mugs from the cupboard.

“You?” Giles snorts. “I am a tea-making god. I'm making it.”

Hilary snorts, but doesn't try to get involved in his brother's tea making process. Mid-boil, the door opens, and Matt comes in. He looks at Hilary and raises his eyebrows at Giles, but doesn't say anything.

Giles does. “Mr Anderson,” he drawls, drawing out the first word.

Matt's expression remains blank. “Jess told me you were here.”

“Miss Parker is highly efficient like that,” Giles replies. Hilary frowns at the tone he's taken, but before he can think to say anything, Giles continues: “Shame she's the only one, really.”

“What -” Matt begins before he's cut off.

“I mean, maybe I'm just a lowly middle management type, but if one of my colleagues got thumped on the head hard enough all his memories literally escaped him, I'd do the decent thing and at least notify his family, rather than keeping him cooped up in a giant underground lab most people don't even know exists.” Giles hands Hilary a mug of tea he hadn't even realised had been brewed, and turns back to look expectantly at Matt.

“This isn't exactly your run of the mill office job.” Matt says. He shifts like he's about to fold his arms but then thinks better of it. His expression still hasn't really altered.

That could get really irritating, Hilary thinks absently.

“Oh, please,” Giles scoffs. “Like that's an excuse.” He steps towards Matt, planting himself in the middle of them all.

Hilary holds his tea to his chest, an odd feeling fluttering through him. “It's all right, Giles,” he says quietly.

“No. It's not.”

Protective.

He's being protective.

Hilary sips his tea and peers over Giles' shoulder at Matt. Advantage – Becker.

Matt sighs. “Look, I'm sorry, but we've still got a job to do.”

“He has amnesia!” Giles snaps. “That kind of thing merits some attention! Or was it just too much for any of you to see him as an actual human being instead of a robot with a gun?”

“It's not that -” Matt begins, but Giles cuts him off again.

“It's not even about clearance – I signed the Official Secrets Act months before you ever showed up. I'm only here now because Hilary was supposed to meet me for lunch and never showed, or called to cancel.”

Something flickers on Matt's face. “His phone's in his locker.”

“Which you could have used to – oh, I don't know, phone a family member.” Giles' voice has gone low and quiet.

“I'm sorry,” Matt says thickly. “Is that what you want to hear?”

Giles stares at him for a long moment. “It's a start.”

Matt nods to them both curtly. “I'm sorry, Becker,” he repeats, and then turns on his heel.

Giles watches him go and then turns to Hilary. “And this is why people don't like me.”

“I don't know,” Hilary says mildly, “I'm warming up to you.”

Giles gives him a blinding smile.

o o o o o

Go to: Part 3

o o o o o

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

basched.livejournal.com

Wow.

I don't know quite what to focus on here! I love how you've written Jess and Lester! Becker reading and remembering Sarah was so heart wrenching!

And Giles! Fan-bloody-tastic! I do like his character and he certainly had a point when confronting Matt!

I would love to read more! :) When you get round to it! ;)

From:

explodedpen.livejournal.com

Thank you so much for the comment! We had a lot of fun writing this, but we did know that we wanted Giles to be more protective than he is normally - after all its fine if he messes with his brother, but no one else can do it! :)

Fic: Retrograde Becker (2/3)

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