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Title: Several Miles from the Sun: Book 1 (Part 4 of 4)
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor eventually
Rating: 15
Spoilers: This is an AU from 2.04, so spoilers up until the end of that episode
Author's Notes: Written for the Primeval Ficathon for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
temaris. Full notes and disclaimer on part 1.
The title - and quotes - are from 'The Sun' by Maroon 5.
Summary: The first step is always the hardest. After that, it's all downhill.
Chapter Listing
Several Miles from the Sun: Book One - Part 1
Several Miles from the Sun: Book One - Part 2
Several Miles from the Sun: Book One - Part 3
~*~
Day 16
For once it was Abby who slept longer that morning, the exhaustion catching up with her. Connor had taken the last watch of the night, and the presence of the fire had gone some way to soothing her fears, at least enough to finally fall into an uneasy slumber, one she didn't stir from until the sun was already high in the sky.
When she finally stumbled out of their cave, the fire had gone out but the ashes were still smouldering gently, giving off heat. She skirted around it on her way to where Connor was sitting on a rock - the day was already growing warm and even the heat from the ashes was too much on top of that. It would cool eventually though, and then they'd be able to eat their one meal today. Her stomach rumbled at the thought but quietly. Perhaps, like her, it was just growing used to being empty.
It had been more than two weeks, and there had been no sign of the anomaly reopening, nor had there been any sign of anyone following them through the anomaly. Each and every night they watched, staring along the coast for any sign of an anomaly glittering in the darkness. It might have taken them two days to get this far but Abby wasn't stupid. They'd been travelling slowly, their speed curtailed by the terrain and the weather, as well as their fear and exhaustion. As the crow flew, it was far closer than that, and the coast curved around. They hadn't realised that when they'd set out, because the mouth of the river was offset from the beach and hidden behind the end of the escarpment, but they were on one side of a wide, shallow bay and the anomaly had opened on the other side. That was their best guess anyway. But it meant that if the anomaly opened, it would open on the other side of the bay and they would see it. At least when it was dark, when there was no other light source to distract from it
If it opened at night they'd see it. She was sure of it, just like she was sure that the first thing anyone following them through would do was fire a flare. She had to be sure of it because that hope - that surety - was almost everything she had.
Two weeks and nothing. If it hadn't been for Connor, she'd have given up hope by now, gone stark staring mad. Connor kept her grounded and Connor kept her sane. And she did the same for him, she hoped.
Connor was turning out to be a bit of a revelation. She'd always known that he was smart - it was a bit difficult to miss - but there really was an odd streak of practicality in him that was made up of equal parts imagination and a memory for esoteric facts combined with the ability to twist them to fit the circumstances.
Like figuring out how to cook when they had no pans or utensils. It was Connor who had come up with the bright idea of digging a pit in the sand and burying their food, wrapped in large fern leaves, in it before building a fire over the top. He'd picked the idea up from some TV show, he'd said. Some documentary where Islanders from a tropical paradise had cooked their community feasts in just such a fashion.
She'd been dubious. She shouldn't have been - he'd been right, like he'd been about so many things so far. It had taken some experimentation, and the Mer flesh didn't taste much better cooked than it had raw, but they'd come up with a system that worked fairly well. Providing that they had anything to cook. The Mer meat hadn't lasted long and neither of them were up to hunting anything that size on their own.
They were down to some weirdly shaped shellfish instead, which were easier - but not exactly easy - to collect from all along the shoreline. They weren't much to write home about - they tasted like salty rubber, even when cooked with the seaweed that they'd also collected - but she couldn't complain about it. The pair of them were lucky to have anything to cook at all.
"Hey."
"Hey." Connor looked up at her and smiled, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the sun. His fingers were red again, covered in small streaks where the myriad of small cuts that adorned his hands had bled. It made her wince just to look at them.
"How's it going?" she asked, settling herself down on a rock near him and tucking her hands under her knees just so that she wouldn't reach out and touch him. The rock was already warm from the sun and she closed her eyes and tilted her face up towards it. It was bright, even through her eyelids, but it was pleasant on her face. Give it a couple of hours and it would be a different story. The sun at midday was brutal - Connor could attest to that. His nose and neck were a dull red, the skin peeling badly in spite of the fact that they'd tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible. It was difficult, though, when all of their time was spent in the never ending search for food or firewood or anything else that might keep them alive.
Connor held up the flint nodule he'd been working on, tilting it so that she could see it clearly. It didn't look like much but she made an approving noise anyway, not wanting to discourage him. She supposed it did look a little different than it had before Connor had started to shape it but then she wasn't entirely sure what a hand axe was supposed to look like. Before the anomalies, she'd always been more interested in recent creatures, the ones inhabiting the world all around her. She'd expanded her knowledge of prehistoric creatures immeasurably since starting work on the project - and living with Connor - but hominid development was still something she didn't know a great deal about.
People had never really interested her. Not as much as lizards did.
"It's…" she said, searching for just the right adjectives.
"It's a rock," Connor said, smiling again. He looked tired; his cheeks were sunken and his hair was greasy, starting to slide into his face before he pushed it back with one grimy hand. He was cultivating quite a beard as well. It was weird to see it on his face - it made him look older, not at all like the Connor she knew. She could hardly comment on his appearance, though - she doubted she looked much better. "Well, actually it's a hand axe but…" He eyed it critically, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. "I think it's getting there."
She smiled back at him, making a noncommittal noise and bringing her hands up to cup her knees instead of sitting on them. He ducked his head, looking kind of pleased even though she hadn't really said anything. But then she wasn't really sure what she could say to Connor when they had these quiet moments. The rest of the time was so rushed, so stressed, that they didn't have to talk, but it was times like this… well, there was that whole elephant in the room thing and Connor was pretty much avoiding the whole topic.
She still wasn't sure how she felt about that. She just hadn't had the time to dwell on it so in a way, the fact that he was avoiding it meant that she didn't have to.
"It's great," she said, giving him another smile. "You're really getting the hang of this."
The smile he gave her this time was a little rueful. "I couldn't get much worse," he said, rubbing absently at one of the cuts on the back of his hand. "Worse than woodwork. I seem to get more splinters."
She hesitated and then reached out to catch hold of his hand, turning it over so that she could examine the palm and not missing the way that his breath caught in his throat at her touch. She traced one of the longer scratches with her finger, gently so that it didn't hurt him, and his fingers trembled a little in her grip.
"I think you're doing great, Connor."
Her voice came out low for some reason, and he ducked his head again. This time the red that stained his cheeks above the dark growth of his stubble wasn't from the sun.
"I… um… I made you something. I mean, I made something I thought you could use."
"Oh?" Now she was curious. She couldn't imagine what he could have made for her, not here where there was nothing. He reached down, scrubbing around in the sand at his feet until he found what he was looking for.
"Oh," she said again. "It's a rock." Then she bit her lip, glancing at him to make sure that she hadn't offended him. Although offending Connor usually took a lot more concerted effort.
He was smiling again, doing that thing where he smiled at her from under his lashes, trying - and failing - to hide his grin.
"It's a knife," he explained. "Sort of." He held it out to her, his smile this time a little hopeful around the edges. She took it, turning it over in her fingers and admiring the colour of it - a deep blue black. "Careful," he said. "It's -"
Her fingers slipped and the blade sliced into the heel of her thumb. She hissed and brought her hand up to her mouth.
"- sharp," he finished, wincing a little sheepishly. "Here. Let me…"
He took the blade from her, placing it carefully on the ground, and then reached up for her hand, hesitating for a brief moment before he pulled it gently away from her mouth. Her heart tripped a beat before speeding up as he unfurled her fingers, tracing his finger carefully over her palm, touching her just like she'd touched him, moments earlier.
Her hand was barely bleeding - the blade had cut in at an angle, so that there was a long, thin flap of white skin but little in the way of blood. It would sting later, though, when she was down on the shore, dipping her hand into the cold seawater as she tried to twist and rip shellfish loose from where they were clinging to the rocks.
Connor hesitated for another moment, eyes flicking up to sneak a look at her face - like she was able to take her eyes from him with her heart still doing the salsa in her chest. Then he lifted her hand higher, dipping his head to place a gentle kiss in the middle of her palm, his stubble scratching at her skin.
It rendered her speechless and his face, when he looked back up, was redder than ever. He gave her another one of those smiles, all tentative around the edges, hope and fear all mixed up together, and said, a little sheepishly, "My mum always used to kiss it better."
So had hers and it felt like a stomach punch, how quickly and how hard the fact that she missed her mum - her mum of all people - washed over her, leaving tears stinging in her eyes and a lump in her throat as big as the rock Connor had been working on.
Connor dropped her hand, his cheeks still pink, and cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed. He rubbed his hands against his legs, a nervous move he had sometimes when things were just a little much, and she couldn't do anything but sit there and watch him twist in the wind, stunned silent by the sense of loss. He deserved better, but then didn't she?
"Breakfast?" he asked her brightly, avoiding her eyes. She still couldn't speak - too worried that she'd burst into tears and that Connor might think that it was something he'd done. He had the habit of doing that.
She smiled instead, a little watery, and that must have caught his attention because now he looked at her, his face settling into a look of concern. She swallowed, taking a firm grip on everything and shoving those things she didn't need right now down to the back, burying them as deep as she could. It hurt but it was better than having to deal with Connor's well meaning sympathy.
That would break her completely.
"That sounds good," she got out, rather proud of how little her voice wavered. Maybe a little, at the end, but it either fooled Connor or he decided, for once, that stumbling in with his size tens wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. Whatever the reason, he gave her a searching look for a moment, and then another of those brief, quirky smiles, moving away from her to pick up the large, flat shell they'd found - one half of another bivalve - to start pushing the ashes away from the fire. As always, in spite of how well he positioned himself, some soot blew back at him, making his face even dirtier than it had been, and he wiped his sleeve over his face, smearing it and ending up looking like a refugee from Mary Poppins.
The shellfish were hot, burning the end of her fingers as she pulled the edges further apart, scooping out the flesh within impatiently. But she was hungry enough to ignore the brief pain, sucking at her fingers instead when she pushed the food into her mouth to ease the sting of it. Connor was almost as impatient, although he did slow down half way through their meal, his eyes wandering to where he'd been working on his hand axe and his expression thoughtful. She almost offered a penny for his thoughts but… Well, she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to pay the price if it involved everything that they weren't talking about.
Not yet. Not when there was something sitting in her belly that had no right to be there and she missed her mum like crazy.
"So…" She cast her mind frantically about for a safe topic of conversation instead, because anything - almost anything - was better than the silence. "What do you want to do today?"
He snorted, turning his attention back to his meal. She'd been good - she hadn't stolen his share while he'd been distracted, and she was now down to stuffing the steamed or roasted or firepitted - however you described it - seaweed into her mouth, chewing stubbornly. Very stubbornly.
He shrugged, eyes moving back up to her face, sliding to her ear before it dropped away again, and he went back to staring thoughtfully at where his hand axe lay discarded on the sand.
"Do you want to try fishing?" he asked. "I mean, like real fish."
Real fish would be awesome, assuming that there was such a thing around here. She could feel her mouth start to water at the thought of it, and she'd never considered herself to be much of a fish fan, unless it came in batter and with a side order of chips and mushy peas.
"Yeah," she said wistfully. "That would be great."
He grinned again, fingers now pulling apart the strands of seaweed as though that would make them more edible. "Can I have your earring then?"
She blinked, her hand flying up to finger the earring studding the curve of her ear. She'd forgotten it was there, so used to wearing it. It was a miracle it hadn't been ripped out. "Yeah. Course you can." She fumbled it undone and handed it over, rewarded with another smile before he pulled it apart, examining it. "What do you want it for?"
"Thought it might make a fish hook. Well, sort of." He pulled it further apart, straining to bend the metal and it did end up looking a little more like a hook than a ring. "If I put the wire through this bit…" She craned forward and looked at where he was pointing, the part where the thin wire that went through her ear was attached to the ornamental part. "It should fit. I suppose we'll just have to try it and see, yeah? Pity we don't have any more wire, really." His eyes unfocused a little, a sure sign that he was thinking about something. "I mean, stronger stuff. For hooks." He shrugged. "I suppose if we manage to find… I don't know… some thorns or something."
He sounded doubtful, and then it clicked. They did. She could kick herself for not thinking of it sooner.
She might have baulked a bit at doing this before - even when they shared a flat, there were just some things you didn't do around a bloke - but it seemed a bit weird to be precious about it here, when they were two or three meals from starvation and when this was just another resource they could exploit.
Although it was also a bit weird to be thinking about it in those terms. The only option was to not let herself think about it too much. So she just reached up underneath her top, at the back, and unfastened her bra.
Connor watched her open-mouthed as she hooked her fingers up her sleeves, tugging at each strap in turn down her arms and slipping her hands out, and then she could reach up underneath the front of her top and just tug.
She presented it to him with a flourish, because it was better that way; better to make a production out of it than to be embarrassed. He was red enough for both of them, still open-mouthed and looking a little shell-shocked, and that somehow made it easier, funnier.
"Wow," he said, taking it and handling it like it was going to blow up in his face any second. He was being very good at not touching the lace, she noticed. "I didn't know girls could do that."
She suspected he didn't know a lot about what girls could do.
"We are creatures of many talents," she intoned seriously, fighting off a case of the giggles. "Maybe you could use the underwires. Not sure whether you can shape them or not -" he blushed even harder at that, "- but it's worth a try." And then, feeling adventurous, she added, "The rest might be useful as well."
He completely lost it at that, his hand coming up to cover his mouth but not before she heard something that sounded suspiciously like the first line of I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts. She kicked out at him, grinning herself, wider when he rolled away from her foot, still laughing.
"Connor Temple!" she said, aiming for shock and not fooling him for a second. "That's a really inappropriate suggestion." She waited a beat, long enough for him to look at her again, his eyes dancing with glee, and then added, "I haven't seen any coconuts. Don't know about you."
That sat him off again, and this time she just watched him, grinning, while he fought to get himself back under control. It hadn't even been that funny, but it was the tension, she supposed. Whatever the reason, it was lovely to see after the sombreness of the last few days, from both of them, and for a split second she just wanted to grab hold of him and kiss him, swallowing that laughter down.
She had no idea where the impulse had come from and she could feel the heat rushing to her face as the thought crossed her mind. It pushed her into awkwardness and she swallowed it all down, sobering up rapidly.
"So," she said, nudging him with her toe and watching as the laughter slowly faded from his face. "Any ideas about where's the best place to fish?"
He wiped at his eyes, smearing the soot further. "I thought off the coast here, but I haven't really seen anything that counts as a shoal. Not that I'm exactly an experienced fisherm - person. What about you?"
She gave it some thought, turning ideas over and over in her mind, trying to concentrate on the ones that had to do with fishing. "I think our best bet might be to head back towards the mangroves. Lots of nutrients being washed down to the sea. From what I know about the way they develop in our time - and from what we've seen - I think it will have a high level of both biodiversity and biomass."
"So, more likely to be fish there, both more species and more of them," he interpreted. "You could have just said that."
"Right. Like you're any better with your geekspeak."
He let that slide, pushing himself to his feet and offering her a hand to pull her up again. She didn't miss the 'oof' he let out when she let him bear her full weight, and she kicked him in the ankle as she passed him, just in case.
"We can have another scout around, look for other things we can eat," she said, reaching over to pick up her knife - the one that Connor had made her - and slipping it into her pocket. It felt cool against her hand, smooth on the edge that he hadn't sharpened, and she wrapped her fingers around it, feeling it fit snugly into her palm. "You ready?"
---
They were quicker in getting to the mangroves this time, maybe because they were getting used to the route, or maybe because they were simply getting used to moving over the terrain. They moved together smoothly, walking side by side, Connor fiddling with the wire he was carrying, smoothing out the kinks and not really paying much attention to what was going on around him.
Abby wondered if kicking him again might actually force him to stay alert. But that was Connor, for you. He might sweat the small stuff on occasion, when he worried about minutiae, but the big stuff - the scary stuff that tended to keep her awake at night, turning over all of their options in her mind and coming up terrifyingly short - he just tended to wander through and remain oblivious of. He concentrated on the technical, on the tasks he'd broken down into steps, moving through them one by one. But as for the big picture…
It was Abby who remained alert, Abby who kept a watch out for any sign of danger. They had to climb on the approach towards the mangroves, where the escarpment curved down towards the river, and this was always where she was the most twitchy. The visibility here was poor. The grasslands that stretched out, covering the ground from the forest to the foot of the escarpment, were growing in day by day, fuelled by the rains that fell each night. The grass was growing longer, still patchy and short in some places, but with clumps that now would reach Abby's waist.
When Connor looked out over that land, he probably didn't see much. He was still, she thought, attuned to the land they'd left, not the one they were trapped in now. If you wandered through the parks in the city they lived in, you might have to worry about the grass hiding dog muck or mud or, if the worst came to the worst, a mugger. Here it could be hiding something much worse.
They hadn't seen the hyboars since that first evening they'd arrived at the river, when they'd first tasted Mer meat. That didn't, as far as Abby was concerned, mean that the hyboars had moved on and vacated the vicinity. It just meant that up to now they'd been lucky.
So she kept her eyes peeled as they slid down the slope to the plains, watching for any movement in the long grass that could be put down to more than the wind.
Nothing stirred but she didn't relax until the shadows of the forest engulfed them. It was weird how soon she got used to this - the gloom, full of insects that grew to obscene sizes and small potholes burrowed into the ground and inhabited by small lizards or spiders or even, she thought, catching sight once of something brown and sleek scurrying off into the undergrowth, small mammals. But then the alternative was something with teeth and tusks that had taken down something their size without any effort, so she'd take the forest any day.
They took a similar path to the one they'd taken many times before, down to the river, and they passed trees and shrubs and ferns that were growing familiar. Here was the hollow with the broken tree stump, the remnants of the tree that had once grown there tumbled down to lie on the ground. It was covered with moss but even that carpet of green couldn't cover the black, scorched bark that had resulted from either a lightning strike or a localised forest fire. They stopped there for a moment, and Abby slid her knife out of her pocket, using it to slice off a piece of fungus that already showed nicks around its edges. The knife worked like a dream and the smile she gave Connor this time was both proud and grateful.
"That was the one I was trying, yeah?" She had no idea why Connor felt the need to whisper but maybe it was just the stillness of the forest. It wasn't just the size of the ferns that made you feel small. It was everything else as well, from the insects to the size of the fungal growths on this once mighty tree.
Some days she felt like Alice but this wasn't a wonderland.
"Yeah," she said, her voice as low as his. She held the piece - bigger than the one he'd tried previously - out to him.
This had been Connor's idea as well, to try these strange potential foodstuffs out a tiny bit at a time, hoping that if there was any reaction, it wouldn't be fatal at small doses and that they'd therefore have some warning. Actually, it had been Connor's idea that he try it out, a small piece at a time. They'd had a blazing row about it when Abby had pointed out - quite rightly in her opinion - that this was a risk that both of them took. Maybe not on the same plants, but one of them was not going to be guinea pig while the other sat back.
And by that she meant that she wasn't going to sit back while Connor tried to poison himself.
She'd won that argument by simply telling him that if he took something that killed him, she was eating it straight afterwards.
He'd had no comeback to that but the look in his eyes made her regret ever suggesting that she'd do such a thing, even though it had won her the fight.
They tried not to be too stupid about it - they avoided anything that looked like it was flashing natural warning signs, so they didn't touch anything that was bright red or spotted or that didn't quite look or smell right. They stuck to the things that looked like other things had tried to eat it, if not the same plant then at least evidence of that on other, nearby plants of the same type. And so far neither of them had died.
She had to believe that it was always going to be that way. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that she couldn't live without Connor now. It was simply a cold, hard fact.
Connor took the proffered slice without question, placing it on his tongue and chewing it slowly while she watched him, trying not to let her anxiety show. He didn't say much but his face twisted at the taste, as it had last time. It was unusual for Connor not to say something; he wasn't normally the stoic type, but maybe she'd misjudged him on that. She was having to readjust her views on him each and every day, in spite of the fact that they'd pretty much been living in each other's pockets since the day he'd moved into her flat, what, eight months ago?
Some things - the best things - hadn't changed. They'd quickly slipped into the habit of having those sorts of conversations that had always annoyed her with her couple friends - the ones where they always seemed to talk in shorthand, not so much completing each other's sentences as almost reading each other's minds, so that talking consisted of a series of brief, seemingly unrelated comments that were totally cryptic to anyone else. It had annoyed the hell out of Caroline, which was one of the reasons Abby had been in no hurry to stop.
They still did that - there was just no one to comment on it now. It was just… the other, un-talked about stuff that had changed.
"Okay?" she asked him. He shrugged.
"Still tastes like polystyrene," he said and she smiled sympathetically. The one she'd been trying had a taste a bit like antiseptic. She couldn't say she was sorry that there didn't seem to be any around today. Maybe they'd find some as they moved further towards the river.
The forest wasn't deep here, which was just as well. She knew how easy it was to get lost when the trees were thick and disorientating and here there'd be no one riding to the rescue. They probably wouldn't ever venture further in than the river bank - it was too dangerous. As it was, it was only a few minutes before she heard the gentle plink, plink of water droplets, falling from the overhanging leaves into the river. She couldn't hear the river itself, not yet. The water was too sluggish here to make much of a sound, which was why it might be perfect for Connor to test out his new toy. She assumed - she didn't know much about river fishing, about whether fast moving rivers or slow ones were the best places to catch fish. It probably depended on the species and none of the ones she even had a passing familiarity with would be around today.
They moved downstream, Connor catching hold of her hand occasionally to help her over the undergrowth, where it was thickest and most tangled. She didn't actually need his help but there was something sweet about it, about the fact that he reached for her without thinking about it, his focus on picking his own way through.
And it was nice, feeling his fingers wrapping around hers.
They finally reached a wide stone platform, jutting out over the river. To her eyes it looked like an absolutely perfect place to stop and it seemed that Connor was of the same mind because he let go of her hand and started to unwind the hank of wire he'd stuffed into his pocket.
It gave her time to explore, examining the layout of the land with the kind of interest she hadn't had the time or the energy to indulge in before now. The sheet of rock they stood on was angled down so that one end dipped below the surface, the water lapping placidly at its edges. She moved closer to that edge, staring down into where the rock sank into silt, the water clear here, not as heavy with silt as it had been further up the river or further out, where the river ran deeper. There were plants, even here, roots buried in the silt and rising up to twist over them, joining the wide canopy. The river was wide though, so that the plants - trees and ferns intermingling - that tangled together on each bank didn't meet in the middle. There was room for the sun to come through, dappling the water. Overhead, giant insects droned; a dragonfly - huge but no less beautiful for it - dipped down towards the water, its wings brilliant blue in the sunlight.
It was peaceful. She would never have believed that she could think that about this world but it was.
She took a second to enjoy the moment, letting it sink into her, before turning back to Connor. He'd untangled his line and was now straightening it out. As she watched, he reached the makeshift hook, pulling something out of his pocket to put on it. She moved closer, curious, and he looked up with a sheepish smile.
"I wasn't really hungry anyway," he said, still concentrating on pushing her earring through the piece of shellfish flesh. It didn't look easy and she resisted the urge to try and help him. She resisted the urge to do other things too, like push his hair out of his face or…
She turned away, staring back out over the still, deep water. The dragonfly had gone now, although she hadn't seen it pass overhead, and nothing else was stirring.
There was another quiet plink and Connor came up to stand beside her, one end of the wire wrapped around his hand. The other end was now in the water, and she supposed it was just a question of waiting for something to show some interest. The day was hot, but a cool breeze came off the river and compensated for the heat of the day, cooling it to something bearable. It made her sleepy. She settled down on the rock, letting that warmth seep into her, for once letting go of everything else - the constant hunger and thirst and fear. Connor settled down beside her, his thigh pressing against her knee, and she closed her eyes, secure in the knowledge that he was there, and drifted for a while, listening to the quiet around them.
There was a bird in the bush, somewhere. It called out, the cry loud and bright against the silence, and she opened her eyes. The shadows had shifted a little, and Connor was pulling the wire in, his expression serious but not yet concerned. Her stomach rumbled and her bum was numb; she shifted position on the rock and Connor glanced at her, giving her a quick smile, before he cast his line out again, further this time. It hit the water underneath a low hanging branch and she watched the lure slowly sink down into the depths.
Maybe the fish of this river thought that the shellfish was as tasteless as she and Connor did. But she couldn't keep on sitting here, doing nothing, especially not if Connor's fishing was unsuccessful. Connor's leg was still warm against her, and she really wanted lean into him, more than she already was, but there was a restless energy building in her, thrumming through her veins. It had been too long since she'd simply sat and done nothing, not with the pressing need for survival chivvying her along. Sitting idle felt wrong and she had no idea how long she'd dozed.
She cast her eyes about, this time paying more attention to their surroundings. Maybe there was something she'd overlooked, something edible. There didn't seem to be much in the way of fruit or seeds, nothing except the leaves, but over by the water, where she'd been standing earlier, there were reeds growing up, thick and straight and tall. They looked a little like bulrushes crossed with cotton or maybe toned down dandelions, the ends tufting into coarse white feathery strands. At some point she'd have to stop thinking of things in those terms, relating them to things that were familiar and spoke of home. She stared at them numbly for a moment and then…
She could feel the weight of her stone knife resting against her leg and an idea formed slowly in her mind. She rose to her feet, feeling Connor's eyes following her as she moved, and walked over to the edge, settling back down next to the reeds.
They were tougher than they looked, resistant to the knife's edge, as sharp as Connor had tried to make it. She'd worked up quite a sweat by the time she'd managed to saw through the first batch, her fingers and palms stinging from where the tough fibres had cut into her hands.
Connor was watching her curiously, his attention torn between what she was doing and paying attention to the line he had played out. Not that he was getting much in the way of bites, but she'd hate for him to miss it if something did nibble on his lure. She took her reeds back to him and sat next to him, crossing her legs and pulling them across her lap, thinking hard.
He made room for her, switching his attention between the water and what she was trying to do. She wasn't even sure what that was except for the vaguest outline she had in her mind. She pulled the reeds this way and that, the shape she had in mind firming, and then she started to bend them, weaving them together, while Connor continued to play the line out.
It wasn't entirely successful. By the time she'd finished her first attempt, it was rather lopsided and misshapen, and she suspected that it wouldn't hold any weight. But this was all trial and error, wasn't it? Even now, she was reconsidering the shape she had in mind, pulling the physical structure in various directions and thinking about support struts maybe, or thinner reeds or vines to weave in and out of those she'd cut, to make a sturdier shape.
"It's… a basket?" Connor offered and she grinned, nudging him with her shoulder.
"It's an attempt at one, yeah."
"Hey." He nudged her back. "It's a really good attempt." His face, when she glanced up at him, was open, smiling widely in spite of his lack of success.
She looked out over the water, searching for - and spotting - the point where his line had gone in.
"No luck?"
"Nah." It was only now he started to look a little dispirited. "Looks like we're back to not-scallops and not-tasty seaweed." He tugged again on the line. "Know what I really want?"
She knew what was coming. "Oh, don't." It didn't stop him.
"Pizza."
Her stomach growled again. "Pepperoni," she said.
"Stuffed crust." It wasn't making anything better - if anything, her stomach just protested even more loudly. Connor didn't seem to hear it. "You know what? When we get home, the first thing I'm going to do is go to Pizza Hut. The all you can eat buffet."
Oh God. Her mouth was watering and another wave of homesickness washed over it. She swallowed it down, tried to lighten things up, as much for her sake as his. "I think you probably need to have a shower first," she teased, nudging him again, and he smiled, a little wistfully. "And a shave."
"So, I'll order in. Have a shower while they deliver." His smile ebbed away. "When we get home," he added, his voice dropping to a low murmur.
"They do pepperoni stuffed crust now, you know," she offered, like that was going to help any.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said, pulling her knees up again and wrapping her arms around them. "We'll get mushrooms too. And garlic bread. Lots of it."
"Yeah." He tugged on his line again and she didn't miss the way that he leaned fractionally into her, just for a moment, a warm pressure against her side before it was gone. She played with the strands of reed by her side, the tufts that she'd pulled off, because it was better than going completely girly and just begging him for a hug.
He'd give her one, she knew, and he probably wouldn't try for more. It had been ages since Connor had flirted with her like that. She'd blown him off too many times when he'd just been the geeky undergrad and her focus had been on the lean and competent form of Stephen. Back before she'd realised where her attention really should have been, who she really fit with.
She loved Stephen, she supposed. In a way. As a mate. But Connor…
She looked out over the river and caught sight of another insect this time, something not quite like a beetle but the shape lacking the lean lines of a dragonfly. It buzzed low across the water, and its wings beat so fast that they blurred, the movements coming together until it looked like it had two tufts sprouting from its body where its wings should be.
Her fingers stroked idly along the lines of the reed heads and then…
"Connor?"
"Hmm? You know, I don't think we're going to catch anything here." He looked up and down the riverbank, as though that was going to magically provide some inspiration. "Maybe there aren't any fish. Maybe the crocodiles have eaten them all."
"Oh, don't," she said again, frowning this time, and he looked over at her, mouthing a silent 'sorry' when he realised that the comment really had disconcerted her.
"Maybe," she said, by way of an acceptance of his apology, "we just need to make the lure look more like a fly."
"You mean like fly fishing?"
"No, Connor. I mean like pigeon fishing."
He rolled his eyes at that before shooting her another grin. "D'you have something in mind?"
She held up one of the reed heads, twisting it around and around in the air so that the tufts flapped. They didn't look much like flies, but they looked more like flies than her earring did. Besides, fish were stupid, weren't they?
Connor looked dubious but sighed in a long suffering way, one that would have got him a quick kick up the backside if she'd had either the energy or the inclination.
"What are we going to use to tie it on?"
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. Like that was the worst of their problems.
In the end, they settled on a blade of one of the long grasses that grew along the bank, wrapping it around and around the lure, tucking it over and under until it looked like it would hold. The end result sort of looked like a fly. If you were extremely short-sighted and thought that flies were sort of lopsided and green.
She just hoped that any fish that there were lurking nearby, assuming that there were any and that Connor's mythical crocodiles - she shuddered at the thought - hadn't eaten them all, were fooled.
Connor threw his line out again. The foliage they'd wrapped around it wouldn't let it sink this time so it floated on the surface, bobbing up and down. Connor pulled it in slowly, leaving ripples in its wake, and then he cast it out again, further this time so that once again it landed with a soft plop underneath the low hanging branches, leaning over the water on the other bank.
The seventh or eighth time he did it, something dark moved under the surface and then the lure disappeared, tugged down into the depths.
Her fingers tightened on Connor's arm, digging in. "Don't lose it," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the point where the lure had vanished. "Connor…"
"Shut up," he whispered back, his more like a stage whisper, the lines of his body tense and his face focused, his jaw jutting out the way it did when he was worked up about something. He started to pull the line in, slowly, hand over hand and she grew more and more tense the closer whatever it was grew to the shore.
And then she could see it, a distinct fish like shape, something brown in the brownish water, well camouflaged. It wasn't huge but even so - fish. Something new and something edible, which was a hell of a lot more than they'd had before.
She took in a deep breath and held it in, watching the brown shape move closer and closer to the bank as Connor gently played the line, not tugging too hard in case their makeshift hook slipped loose. And then it was there, right next to the bank, and she couldn't wait any longer. She left Connor pulling the line tight and scooted down to the edge of their rock, leaning over to slide her hands underneath their fish and flip it out.
It landed with a wet slap on the rock, splashing the pair of them with water and fish slime as it flopped about, its mouth gaping and its gills opening and shutting frantically. Connor grabbed for it as it started to slide back down towards the river, falling down onto his knees with a crack that made her wince in sympathy, and she came up on its other side, her knife in her hands. One sharp blow to the back of its head and its thrashing eased. A second blow and it was down to quivering. She couldn't feel any sympathy for it, not when the hunger was a constant presence in both of their lives.
It finally stilled, only giving an occasional twitch, and the gaping mouth slackened. She sat back on her heels, panting heavily in spite of the oxygen rich atmosphere, and just stared at it.
It looked like a fish. Just a normal, boring brown fish, with gills and scales and fins and a tail. It was the only thing they'd seen so far that wasn't subtly wrong in some way, at least to her eyes. And as for Connor…
Like her, he was panting, either with effort or excitement or both, but he was still managing to grin, wide and bright, ear to ear and his eyes were just lit up like a little kid's. He was staring down at the fish - the fish he'd caught, that between them they'd caught with nothing but an earring and some imagination. And a hell of a lot of determination when it came to that.
Her mouth widened at the thought until her grin was as bright and broad as his. "Well done, you," she said, unable to hold in the excitement, the sheer thrill of it all, any longer. "Well done!"
He finally tore his eyes away from the fish but his grin didn't dampen any as he looked up at her and then held up his palm in the classic high five gesture. She met it, pressing their palms together and matching his grin with one of her own.
"So," he said, staring back down at his fish and looking for all the world like he was resisting the urge to stroke it. "Want to try catching another one?"
She laughed, the sound bubbling up from deep within her, and his grin - impossibly - widened even further.
"I mean," he continued, "now that you've made that basket, it'd be a pity not to fill it."
She swiped at him and he ducked, but his grin still didn't dim. Neither did hers as she watched him ease the hook out of the fish's mouth. It had held up pretty well, although the makeshift body they'd patched together hadn't survived; it was slimy and mangled, and looked even less like a fly than it had before. She left Connor dealing with that; if he was going to catch more, they would need something to carry the fish home with them and while her first attempt hadn't been much cop, she wasn't going to quit trying. Quitters never won, as her mum said, and the fact that Connor had persevered and succeeded made her even more determined. The reed bed beckoned, and she needed to wash the fish's blood from her blade and her hands anyway.
As she rinsed both in the water, she spotted something on the riverbed, something bright and glittering. For a moment, she thought it was a trick of the light but it stayed steady, even as the water moved around it.
She reached down, plucking the rock from the riverbed and thinking that this was it, this was the point where their luck changed for the better.
"Connor…?"
Something dark came out of the water, something dark and huge and hungry. She screamed, she knew she did, scrabbling backwards, kicking out desperately with her feet and just trying to get away.
One of her feet struck it and it turned its head but she was already further up the rock, moving like a crab, back and up and away, breath now panting in her throat, her mind a constant, fear-driven litany of, "Bigbigbig… oh God… Oh God…"
She was out of reach, surely she was out of reach, God, she had to be out of reach because it was a fish, a massive, insanely big fish but a fish and fish couldn't get that far out of the water and then it used its fins to haul itself further up the bank and its jaws opened and fish shouldn't have teeth like that, shouldn't be that big and still look like a fish, not a shark and… and… and…
And Connor's hands grabbed her, pulling her further up the bank, his breath panting harshly in her ear and his grip painfully tight as he tugged and pulled her and the fish's too sharp teeth closed over where her foot had been.
She grabbed at Connor, using her flailing feet to leverage her further up the bank, never taking her eyes off the monstrosity that had appeared out of nowhere, and it heaved itself sideways, one huge black eye rolling at her as it disappeared back into the water. She was going to see that eye in her dreams, in her nightmares; it was going to follow her down into the dark each and every night.
"Abby." Connor was rocking her, hands still gripping her tightly as he whispered her name over and over again into her hair. "Abby."
She stared at the ripples it had left behind, huge rings of them disturbing the river, marring its surface from bank to bank. She'd thought was placid, she'd thought… It wasn't. It wasn't. Nothing here was.
"I lost my knife," she said numbly.
Connor's grip tightened and he made a sound like a sob. "I'll make you a new one. Abby, I promise, okay?"
She nodded, her eyes still watching those circles. "You lost your fish too," she whispered and Connor didn't answer her this time, just held on tight while his body shook against hers.
Her fingers were hurting and she opened her hand, staring down numbly at the bright rock sitting in her palm. Iron pyrite - fool's gold.
And then the rain came down again, like it did every night; sheets of water that sounded like the hissing of snakes. It pelted against the surface of the water until she couldn't see the rings anymore, had no idea where that thing had disappeared to. Connor hitched her further up the bank, pulling her to her feet and pulling her closer, wrapping his arms tight around her. She was glad for the rain, glad that it hid the tears that were now streaming down her face, shock and grief and rage all mixed up together and all pouring out. Glad that it hid any tears that there may have been on Connor's face too because she couldn't do this, she wasn't strong enough to do this for both of them, she wasn't.
She wanted to go home. Go home to pizza and her mum and to where the only type of fish she had to deal with were the ones that came in newspaper.
It had been two weeks. Two weeks in a world where even the fish were monsters, where nothing, nothing was right. Where everything was wrong.
Two weeks, and no one was coming. No one. They were all alone, were always going to be alone; nothing but her and Connor and the rain.
Day 6
It was raining again. Nick's office was near the roof, tucked out of the way of the hustle and bustle that typified a normal day at the ARC, and he was one of the few lucky enough to have a window. The rain streamed down it, droplets joining until they formed trails, until everything outside was obscured and the only sound he could hear was the white noise of it drumming against the roof.
He turned his attention away from the window and back to his laptop screen where the video he'd found, taken at one of the early anomaly sites, was streaming over the network.
Abby's face smiled back at him, her eyes crinkling at something Connor was undoubtedly saying. It had to be Connor - the camera was bouncing around too much for it to be Stephen. Out of all of them, only Connor grew that excited, so excited that he couldn't even keep still.
Stephen loomed into the frame, the expression on his face amused and tolerant. Definitely Connor behind the camera then - only Connor got that indulgent expression, even these days. And then Stephen reached up, around the camera, taking it back from whoever had been holding it.
He'd been right - it had been Connor. He appeared in shot, heading straight for Abby, of course, and wearing that bloody stupid hat. Nick's throat ached at the sight of the pair of them, teasing each other and just happy. Safe.
"Cutter?"
He looked up into Jenny's face, poised in the doorway but for once not barging straight in. She twisted her face apologetically.
"Sorry. Anomaly on the south-east coast. Lester wants us to move out as soon as possible, okay?"
He hadn't even heard the alarm, drowned out as it was by the driving rain.
"Okay," he said, nodding at her just to reinforce that. She gave him a searching look but didn't comment, just dipped her head and moved away, probably to find Stephen.
Nick looked back at his laptop screen, where Connor was now leaning into Abby, pointing out something just off screen. There was no need for him to lean that closely and Nick didn't need to see the wistful yearning expression that crossed his face as Abby looked away, in the direction he was pointing, to know exactly why he had.
And then Stephen, like any good scientist, moved the camera towards whatever it was that Connor had pointed out and the pair of them disappeared from view completely.
Nick reached up and grasped the lid of the laptop, closing it down and waiting for the blinking lights to tell him that it had gone into hibernation mode before he finally stood up and pulled his jacket off the back of his chair.
Five days, maybe six if they were unlucky, and they'd have Abby and Connor back.
Five days, maybe six. He counted them down. Five days, maybe six; that was all.
He wasn't much of a praying man, but he prayed for that.
End Book One.
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor eventually
Rating: 15
Spoilers: This is an AU from 2.04, so spoilers up until the end of that episode
Author's Notes: Written for the Primeval Ficathon for
temaris. Full notes and disclaimer on part 1.The title - and quotes - are from 'The Sun' by Maroon 5.
Summary: The first step is always the hardest. After that, it's all downhill.
Chapter Listing
Several Miles from the Sun: Book One - Part 1
Several Miles from the Sun: Book One - Part 2
Several Miles from the Sun: Book One - Part 3
~*~
Day 16
For once it was Abby who slept longer that morning, the exhaustion catching up with her. Connor had taken the last watch of the night, and the presence of the fire had gone some way to soothing her fears, at least enough to finally fall into an uneasy slumber, one she didn't stir from until the sun was already high in the sky.
When she finally stumbled out of their cave, the fire had gone out but the ashes were still smouldering gently, giving off heat. She skirted around it on her way to where Connor was sitting on a rock - the day was already growing warm and even the heat from the ashes was too much on top of that. It would cool eventually though, and then they'd be able to eat their one meal today. Her stomach rumbled at the thought but quietly. Perhaps, like her, it was just growing used to being empty.
It had been more than two weeks, and there had been no sign of the anomaly reopening, nor had there been any sign of anyone following them through the anomaly. Each and every night they watched, staring along the coast for any sign of an anomaly glittering in the darkness. It might have taken them two days to get this far but Abby wasn't stupid. They'd been travelling slowly, their speed curtailed by the terrain and the weather, as well as their fear and exhaustion. As the crow flew, it was far closer than that, and the coast curved around. They hadn't realised that when they'd set out, because the mouth of the river was offset from the beach and hidden behind the end of the escarpment, but they were on one side of a wide, shallow bay and the anomaly had opened on the other side. That was their best guess anyway. But it meant that if the anomaly opened, it would open on the other side of the bay and they would see it. At least when it was dark, when there was no other light source to distract from it
If it opened at night they'd see it. She was sure of it, just like she was sure that the first thing anyone following them through would do was fire a flare. She had to be sure of it because that hope - that surety - was almost everything she had.
Two weeks and nothing. If it hadn't been for Connor, she'd have given up hope by now, gone stark staring mad. Connor kept her grounded and Connor kept her sane. And she did the same for him, she hoped.
Connor was turning out to be a bit of a revelation. She'd always known that he was smart - it was a bit difficult to miss - but there really was an odd streak of practicality in him that was made up of equal parts imagination and a memory for esoteric facts combined with the ability to twist them to fit the circumstances.
Like figuring out how to cook when they had no pans or utensils. It was Connor who had come up with the bright idea of digging a pit in the sand and burying their food, wrapped in large fern leaves, in it before building a fire over the top. He'd picked the idea up from some TV show, he'd said. Some documentary where Islanders from a tropical paradise had cooked their community feasts in just such a fashion.
She'd been dubious. She shouldn't have been - he'd been right, like he'd been about so many things so far. It had taken some experimentation, and the Mer flesh didn't taste much better cooked than it had raw, but they'd come up with a system that worked fairly well. Providing that they had anything to cook. The Mer meat hadn't lasted long and neither of them were up to hunting anything that size on their own.
They were down to some weirdly shaped shellfish instead, which were easier - but not exactly easy - to collect from all along the shoreline. They weren't much to write home about - they tasted like salty rubber, even when cooked with the seaweed that they'd also collected - but she couldn't complain about it. The pair of them were lucky to have anything to cook at all.
"Hey."
"Hey." Connor looked up at her and smiled, raising one hand to shield his eyes from the sun. His fingers were red again, covered in small streaks where the myriad of small cuts that adorned his hands had bled. It made her wince just to look at them.
"How's it going?" she asked, settling herself down on a rock near him and tucking her hands under her knees just so that she wouldn't reach out and touch him. The rock was already warm from the sun and she closed her eyes and tilted her face up towards it. It was bright, even through her eyelids, but it was pleasant on her face. Give it a couple of hours and it would be a different story. The sun at midday was brutal - Connor could attest to that. His nose and neck were a dull red, the skin peeling badly in spite of the fact that they'd tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible. It was difficult, though, when all of their time was spent in the never ending search for food or firewood or anything else that might keep them alive.
Connor held up the flint nodule he'd been working on, tilting it so that she could see it clearly. It didn't look like much but she made an approving noise anyway, not wanting to discourage him. She supposed it did look a little different than it had before Connor had started to shape it but then she wasn't entirely sure what a hand axe was supposed to look like. Before the anomalies, she'd always been more interested in recent creatures, the ones inhabiting the world all around her. She'd expanded her knowledge of prehistoric creatures immeasurably since starting work on the project - and living with Connor - but hominid development was still something she didn't know a great deal about.
People had never really interested her. Not as much as lizards did.
"It's…" she said, searching for just the right adjectives.
"It's a rock," Connor said, smiling again. He looked tired; his cheeks were sunken and his hair was greasy, starting to slide into his face before he pushed it back with one grimy hand. He was cultivating quite a beard as well. It was weird to see it on his face - it made him look older, not at all like the Connor she knew. She could hardly comment on his appearance, though - she doubted she looked much better. "Well, actually it's a hand axe but…" He eyed it critically, turning it this way and that in the sunlight. "I think it's getting there."
She smiled back at him, making a noncommittal noise and bringing her hands up to cup her knees instead of sitting on them. He ducked his head, looking kind of pleased even though she hadn't really said anything. But then she wasn't really sure what she could say to Connor when they had these quiet moments. The rest of the time was so rushed, so stressed, that they didn't have to talk, but it was times like this… well, there was that whole elephant in the room thing and Connor was pretty much avoiding the whole topic.
She still wasn't sure how she felt about that. She just hadn't had the time to dwell on it so in a way, the fact that he was avoiding it meant that she didn't have to.
"It's great," she said, giving him another smile. "You're really getting the hang of this."
The smile he gave her this time was a little rueful. "I couldn't get much worse," he said, rubbing absently at one of the cuts on the back of his hand. "Worse than woodwork. I seem to get more splinters."
She hesitated and then reached out to catch hold of his hand, turning it over so that she could examine the palm and not missing the way that his breath caught in his throat at her touch. She traced one of the longer scratches with her finger, gently so that it didn't hurt him, and his fingers trembled a little in her grip.
"I think you're doing great, Connor."
Her voice came out low for some reason, and he ducked his head again. This time the red that stained his cheeks above the dark growth of his stubble wasn't from the sun.
"I… um… I made you something. I mean, I made something I thought you could use."
"Oh?" Now she was curious. She couldn't imagine what he could have made for her, not here where there was nothing. He reached down, scrubbing around in the sand at his feet until he found what he was looking for.
"Oh," she said again. "It's a rock." Then she bit her lip, glancing at him to make sure that she hadn't offended him. Although offending Connor usually took a lot more concerted effort.
He was smiling again, doing that thing where he smiled at her from under his lashes, trying - and failing - to hide his grin.
"It's a knife," he explained. "Sort of." He held it out to her, his smile this time a little hopeful around the edges. She took it, turning it over in her fingers and admiring the colour of it - a deep blue black. "Careful," he said. "It's -"
Her fingers slipped and the blade sliced into the heel of her thumb. She hissed and brought her hand up to her mouth.
"- sharp," he finished, wincing a little sheepishly. "Here. Let me…"
He took the blade from her, placing it carefully on the ground, and then reached up for her hand, hesitating for a brief moment before he pulled it gently away from her mouth. Her heart tripped a beat before speeding up as he unfurled her fingers, tracing his finger carefully over her palm, touching her just like she'd touched him, moments earlier.
Her hand was barely bleeding - the blade had cut in at an angle, so that there was a long, thin flap of white skin but little in the way of blood. It would sting later, though, when she was down on the shore, dipping her hand into the cold seawater as she tried to twist and rip shellfish loose from where they were clinging to the rocks.
Connor hesitated for another moment, eyes flicking up to sneak a look at her face - like she was able to take her eyes from him with her heart still doing the salsa in her chest. Then he lifted her hand higher, dipping his head to place a gentle kiss in the middle of her palm, his stubble scratching at her skin.
It rendered her speechless and his face, when he looked back up, was redder than ever. He gave her another one of those smiles, all tentative around the edges, hope and fear all mixed up together, and said, a little sheepishly, "My mum always used to kiss it better."
So had hers and it felt like a stomach punch, how quickly and how hard the fact that she missed her mum - her mum of all people - washed over her, leaving tears stinging in her eyes and a lump in her throat as big as the rock Connor had been working on.
Connor dropped her hand, his cheeks still pink, and cleared his throat, sounding embarrassed. He rubbed his hands against his legs, a nervous move he had sometimes when things were just a little much, and she couldn't do anything but sit there and watch him twist in the wind, stunned silent by the sense of loss. He deserved better, but then didn't she?
"Breakfast?" he asked her brightly, avoiding her eyes. She still couldn't speak - too worried that she'd burst into tears and that Connor might think that it was something he'd done. He had the habit of doing that.
She smiled instead, a little watery, and that must have caught his attention because now he looked at her, his face settling into a look of concern. She swallowed, taking a firm grip on everything and shoving those things she didn't need right now down to the back, burying them as deep as she could. It hurt but it was better than having to deal with Connor's well meaning sympathy.
That would break her completely.
"That sounds good," she got out, rather proud of how little her voice wavered. Maybe a little, at the end, but it either fooled Connor or he decided, for once, that stumbling in with his size tens wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. Whatever the reason, he gave her a searching look for a moment, and then another of those brief, quirky smiles, moving away from her to pick up the large, flat shell they'd found - one half of another bivalve - to start pushing the ashes away from the fire. As always, in spite of how well he positioned himself, some soot blew back at him, making his face even dirtier than it had been, and he wiped his sleeve over his face, smearing it and ending up looking like a refugee from Mary Poppins.
The shellfish were hot, burning the end of her fingers as she pulled the edges further apart, scooping out the flesh within impatiently. But she was hungry enough to ignore the brief pain, sucking at her fingers instead when she pushed the food into her mouth to ease the sting of it. Connor was almost as impatient, although he did slow down half way through their meal, his eyes wandering to where he'd been working on his hand axe and his expression thoughtful. She almost offered a penny for his thoughts but… Well, she wasn't entirely sure she was ready to pay the price if it involved everything that they weren't talking about.
Not yet. Not when there was something sitting in her belly that had no right to be there and she missed her mum like crazy.
"So…" She cast her mind frantically about for a safe topic of conversation instead, because anything - almost anything - was better than the silence. "What do you want to do today?"
He snorted, turning his attention back to his meal. She'd been good - she hadn't stolen his share while he'd been distracted, and she was now down to stuffing the steamed or roasted or firepitted - however you described it - seaweed into her mouth, chewing stubbornly. Very stubbornly.
He shrugged, eyes moving back up to her face, sliding to her ear before it dropped away again, and he went back to staring thoughtfully at where his hand axe lay discarded on the sand.
"Do you want to try fishing?" he asked. "I mean, like real fish."
Real fish would be awesome, assuming that there was such a thing around here. She could feel her mouth start to water at the thought of it, and she'd never considered herself to be much of a fish fan, unless it came in batter and with a side order of chips and mushy peas.
"Yeah," she said wistfully. "That would be great."
He grinned again, fingers now pulling apart the strands of seaweed as though that would make them more edible. "Can I have your earring then?"
She blinked, her hand flying up to finger the earring studding the curve of her ear. She'd forgotten it was there, so used to wearing it. It was a miracle it hadn't been ripped out. "Yeah. Course you can." She fumbled it undone and handed it over, rewarded with another smile before he pulled it apart, examining it. "What do you want it for?"
"Thought it might make a fish hook. Well, sort of." He pulled it further apart, straining to bend the metal and it did end up looking a little more like a hook than a ring. "If I put the wire through this bit…" She craned forward and looked at where he was pointing, the part where the thin wire that went through her ear was attached to the ornamental part. "It should fit. I suppose we'll just have to try it and see, yeah? Pity we don't have any more wire, really." His eyes unfocused a little, a sure sign that he was thinking about something. "I mean, stronger stuff. For hooks." He shrugged. "I suppose if we manage to find… I don't know… some thorns or something."
He sounded doubtful, and then it clicked. They did. She could kick herself for not thinking of it sooner.
She might have baulked a bit at doing this before - even when they shared a flat, there were just some things you didn't do around a bloke - but it seemed a bit weird to be precious about it here, when they were two or three meals from starvation and when this was just another resource they could exploit.
Although it was also a bit weird to be thinking about it in those terms. The only option was to not let herself think about it too much. So she just reached up underneath her top, at the back, and unfastened her bra.
Connor watched her open-mouthed as she hooked her fingers up her sleeves, tugging at each strap in turn down her arms and slipping her hands out, and then she could reach up underneath the front of her top and just tug.
She presented it to him with a flourish, because it was better that way; better to make a production out of it than to be embarrassed. He was red enough for both of them, still open-mouthed and looking a little shell-shocked, and that somehow made it easier, funnier.
"Wow," he said, taking it and handling it like it was going to blow up in his face any second. He was being very good at not touching the lace, she noticed. "I didn't know girls could do that."
She suspected he didn't know a lot about what girls could do.
"We are creatures of many talents," she intoned seriously, fighting off a case of the giggles. "Maybe you could use the underwires. Not sure whether you can shape them or not -" he blushed even harder at that, "- but it's worth a try." And then, feeling adventurous, she added, "The rest might be useful as well."
He completely lost it at that, his hand coming up to cover his mouth but not before she heard something that sounded suspiciously like the first line of I've got a lovely bunch of coconuts. She kicked out at him, grinning herself, wider when he rolled away from her foot, still laughing.
"Connor Temple!" she said, aiming for shock and not fooling him for a second. "That's a really inappropriate suggestion." She waited a beat, long enough for him to look at her again, his eyes dancing with glee, and then added, "I haven't seen any coconuts. Don't know about you."
That sat him off again, and this time she just watched him, grinning, while he fought to get himself back under control. It hadn't even been that funny, but it was the tension, she supposed. Whatever the reason, it was lovely to see after the sombreness of the last few days, from both of them, and for a split second she just wanted to grab hold of him and kiss him, swallowing that laughter down.
She had no idea where the impulse had come from and she could feel the heat rushing to her face as the thought crossed her mind. It pushed her into awkwardness and she swallowed it all down, sobering up rapidly.
"So," she said, nudging him with her toe and watching as the laughter slowly faded from his face. "Any ideas about where's the best place to fish?"
He wiped at his eyes, smearing the soot further. "I thought off the coast here, but I haven't really seen anything that counts as a shoal. Not that I'm exactly an experienced fisherm - person. What about you?"
She gave it some thought, turning ideas over and over in her mind, trying to concentrate on the ones that had to do with fishing. "I think our best bet might be to head back towards the mangroves. Lots of nutrients being washed down to the sea. From what I know about the way they develop in our time - and from what we've seen - I think it will have a high level of both biodiversity and biomass."
"So, more likely to be fish there, both more species and more of them," he interpreted. "You could have just said that."
"Right. Like you're any better with your geekspeak."
He let that slide, pushing himself to his feet and offering her a hand to pull her up again. She didn't miss the 'oof' he let out when she let him bear her full weight, and she kicked him in the ankle as she passed him, just in case.
"We can have another scout around, look for other things we can eat," she said, reaching over to pick up her knife - the one that Connor had made her - and slipping it into her pocket. It felt cool against her hand, smooth on the edge that he hadn't sharpened, and she wrapped her fingers around it, feeling it fit snugly into her palm. "You ready?"
---
They were quicker in getting to the mangroves this time, maybe because they were getting used to the route, or maybe because they were simply getting used to moving over the terrain. They moved together smoothly, walking side by side, Connor fiddling with the wire he was carrying, smoothing out the kinks and not really paying much attention to what was going on around him.
Abby wondered if kicking him again might actually force him to stay alert. But that was Connor, for you. He might sweat the small stuff on occasion, when he worried about minutiae, but the big stuff - the scary stuff that tended to keep her awake at night, turning over all of their options in her mind and coming up terrifyingly short - he just tended to wander through and remain oblivious of. He concentrated on the technical, on the tasks he'd broken down into steps, moving through them one by one. But as for the big picture…
It was Abby who remained alert, Abby who kept a watch out for any sign of danger. They had to climb on the approach towards the mangroves, where the escarpment curved down towards the river, and this was always where she was the most twitchy. The visibility here was poor. The grasslands that stretched out, covering the ground from the forest to the foot of the escarpment, were growing in day by day, fuelled by the rains that fell each night. The grass was growing longer, still patchy and short in some places, but with clumps that now would reach Abby's waist.
When Connor looked out over that land, he probably didn't see much. He was still, she thought, attuned to the land they'd left, not the one they were trapped in now. If you wandered through the parks in the city they lived in, you might have to worry about the grass hiding dog muck or mud or, if the worst came to the worst, a mugger. Here it could be hiding something much worse.
They hadn't seen the hyboars since that first evening they'd arrived at the river, when they'd first tasted Mer meat. That didn't, as far as Abby was concerned, mean that the hyboars had moved on and vacated the vicinity. It just meant that up to now they'd been lucky.
So she kept her eyes peeled as they slid down the slope to the plains, watching for any movement in the long grass that could be put down to more than the wind.
Nothing stirred but she didn't relax until the shadows of the forest engulfed them. It was weird how soon she got used to this - the gloom, full of insects that grew to obscene sizes and small potholes burrowed into the ground and inhabited by small lizards or spiders or even, she thought, catching sight once of something brown and sleek scurrying off into the undergrowth, small mammals. But then the alternative was something with teeth and tusks that had taken down something their size without any effort, so she'd take the forest any day.
They took a similar path to the one they'd taken many times before, down to the river, and they passed trees and shrubs and ferns that were growing familiar. Here was the hollow with the broken tree stump, the remnants of the tree that had once grown there tumbled down to lie on the ground. It was covered with moss but even that carpet of green couldn't cover the black, scorched bark that had resulted from either a lightning strike or a localised forest fire. They stopped there for a moment, and Abby slid her knife out of her pocket, using it to slice off a piece of fungus that already showed nicks around its edges. The knife worked like a dream and the smile she gave Connor this time was both proud and grateful.
"That was the one I was trying, yeah?" She had no idea why Connor felt the need to whisper but maybe it was just the stillness of the forest. It wasn't just the size of the ferns that made you feel small. It was everything else as well, from the insects to the size of the fungal growths on this once mighty tree.
Some days she felt like Alice but this wasn't a wonderland.
"Yeah," she said, her voice as low as his. She held the piece - bigger than the one he'd tried previously - out to him.
This had been Connor's idea as well, to try these strange potential foodstuffs out a tiny bit at a time, hoping that if there was any reaction, it wouldn't be fatal at small doses and that they'd therefore have some warning. Actually, it had been Connor's idea that he try it out, a small piece at a time. They'd had a blazing row about it when Abby had pointed out - quite rightly in her opinion - that this was a risk that both of them took. Maybe not on the same plants, but one of them was not going to be guinea pig while the other sat back.
And by that she meant that she wasn't going to sit back while Connor tried to poison himself.
She'd won that argument by simply telling him that if he took something that killed him, she was eating it straight afterwards.
He'd had no comeback to that but the look in his eyes made her regret ever suggesting that she'd do such a thing, even though it had won her the fight.
They tried not to be too stupid about it - they avoided anything that looked like it was flashing natural warning signs, so they didn't touch anything that was bright red or spotted or that didn't quite look or smell right. They stuck to the things that looked like other things had tried to eat it, if not the same plant then at least evidence of that on other, nearby plants of the same type. And so far neither of them had died.
She had to believe that it was always going to be that way. It wasn't an exaggeration to say that she couldn't live without Connor now. It was simply a cold, hard fact.
Connor took the proffered slice without question, placing it on his tongue and chewing it slowly while she watched him, trying not to let her anxiety show. He didn't say much but his face twisted at the taste, as it had last time. It was unusual for Connor not to say something; he wasn't normally the stoic type, but maybe she'd misjudged him on that. She was having to readjust her views on him each and every day, in spite of the fact that they'd pretty much been living in each other's pockets since the day he'd moved into her flat, what, eight months ago?
Some things - the best things - hadn't changed. They'd quickly slipped into the habit of having those sorts of conversations that had always annoyed her with her couple friends - the ones where they always seemed to talk in shorthand, not so much completing each other's sentences as almost reading each other's minds, so that talking consisted of a series of brief, seemingly unrelated comments that were totally cryptic to anyone else. It had annoyed the hell out of Caroline, which was one of the reasons Abby had been in no hurry to stop.
They still did that - there was just no one to comment on it now. It was just… the other, un-talked about stuff that had changed.
"Okay?" she asked him. He shrugged.
"Still tastes like polystyrene," he said and she smiled sympathetically. The one she'd been trying had a taste a bit like antiseptic. She couldn't say she was sorry that there didn't seem to be any around today. Maybe they'd find some as they moved further towards the river.
The forest wasn't deep here, which was just as well. She knew how easy it was to get lost when the trees were thick and disorientating and here there'd be no one riding to the rescue. They probably wouldn't ever venture further in than the river bank - it was too dangerous. As it was, it was only a few minutes before she heard the gentle plink, plink of water droplets, falling from the overhanging leaves into the river. She couldn't hear the river itself, not yet. The water was too sluggish here to make much of a sound, which was why it might be perfect for Connor to test out his new toy. She assumed - she didn't know much about river fishing, about whether fast moving rivers or slow ones were the best places to catch fish. It probably depended on the species and none of the ones she even had a passing familiarity with would be around today.
They moved downstream, Connor catching hold of her hand occasionally to help her over the undergrowth, where it was thickest and most tangled. She didn't actually need his help but there was something sweet about it, about the fact that he reached for her without thinking about it, his focus on picking his own way through.
And it was nice, feeling his fingers wrapping around hers.
They finally reached a wide stone platform, jutting out over the river. To her eyes it looked like an absolutely perfect place to stop and it seemed that Connor was of the same mind because he let go of her hand and started to unwind the hank of wire he'd stuffed into his pocket.
It gave her time to explore, examining the layout of the land with the kind of interest she hadn't had the time or the energy to indulge in before now. The sheet of rock they stood on was angled down so that one end dipped below the surface, the water lapping placidly at its edges. She moved closer to that edge, staring down into where the rock sank into silt, the water clear here, not as heavy with silt as it had been further up the river or further out, where the river ran deeper. There were plants, even here, roots buried in the silt and rising up to twist over them, joining the wide canopy. The river was wide though, so that the plants - trees and ferns intermingling - that tangled together on each bank didn't meet in the middle. There was room for the sun to come through, dappling the water. Overhead, giant insects droned; a dragonfly - huge but no less beautiful for it - dipped down towards the water, its wings brilliant blue in the sunlight.
It was peaceful. She would never have believed that she could think that about this world but it was.
She took a second to enjoy the moment, letting it sink into her, before turning back to Connor. He'd untangled his line and was now straightening it out. As she watched, he reached the makeshift hook, pulling something out of his pocket to put on it. She moved closer, curious, and he looked up with a sheepish smile.
"I wasn't really hungry anyway," he said, still concentrating on pushing her earring through the piece of shellfish flesh. It didn't look easy and she resisted the urge to try and help him. She resisted the urge to do other things too, like push his hair out of his face or…
She turned away, staring back out over the still, deep water. The dragonfly had gone now, although she hadn't seen it pass overhead, and nothing else was stirring.
There was another quiet plink and Connor came up to stand beside her, one end of the wire wrapped around his hand. The other end was now in the water, and she supposed it was just a question of waiting for something to show some interest. The day was hot, but a cool breeze came off the river and compensated for the heat of the day, cooling it to something bearable. It made her sleepy. She settled down on the rock, letting that warmth seep into her, for once letting go of everything else - the constant hunger and thirst and fear. Connor settled down beside her, his thigh pressing against her knee, and she closed her eyes, secure in the knowledge that he was there, and drifted for a while, listening to the quiet around them.
There was a bird in the bush, somewhere. It called out, the cry loud and bright against the silence, and she opened her eyes. The shadows had shifted a little, and Connor was pulling the wire in, his expression serious but not yet concerned. Her stomach rumbled and her bum was numb; she shifted position on the rock and Connor glanced at her, giving her a quick smile, before he cast his line out again, further this time. It hit the water underneath a low hanging branch and she watched the lure slowly sink down into the depths.
Maybe the fish of this river thought that the shellfish was as tasteless as she and Connor did. But she couldn't keep on sitting here, doing nothing, especially not if Connor's fishing was unsuccessful. Connor's leg was still warm against her, and she really wanted lean into him, more than she already was, but there was a restless energy building in her, thrumming through her veins. It had been too long since she'd simply sat and done nothing, not with the pressing need for survival chivvying her along. Sitting idle felt wrong and she had no idea how long she'd dozed.
She cast her eyes about, this time paying more attention to their surroundings. Maybe there was something she'd overlooked, something edible. There didn't seem to be much in the way of fruit or seeds, nothing except the leaves, but over by the water, where she'd been standing earlier, there were reeds growing up, thick and straight and tall. They looked a little like bulrushes crossed with cotton or maybe toned down dandelions, the ends tufting into coarse white feathery strands. At some point she'd have to stop thinking of things in those terms, relating them to things that were familiar and spoke of home. She stared at them numbly for a moment and then…
She could feel the weight of her stone knife resting against her leg and an idea formed slowly in her mind. She rose to her feet, feeling Connor's eyes following her as she moved, and walked over to the edge, settling back down next to the reeds.
They were tougher than they looked, resistant to the knife's edge, as sharp as Connor had tried to make it. She'd worked up quite a sweat by the time she'd managed to saw through the first batch, her fingers and palms stinging from where the tough fibres had cut into her hands.
Connor was watching her curiously, his attention torn between what she was doing and paying attention to the line he had played out. Not that he was getting much in the way of bites, but she'd hate for him to miss it if something did nibble on his lure. She took her reeds back to him and sat next to him, crossing her legs and pulling them across her lap, thinking hard.
He made room for her, switching his attention between the water and what she was trying to do. She wasn't even sure what that was except for the vaguest outline she had in her mind. She pulled the reeds this way and that, the shape she had in mind firming, and then she started to bend them, weaving them together, while Connor continued to play the line out.
It wasn't entirely successful. By the time she'd finished her first attempt, it was rather lopsided and misshapen, and she suspected that it wouldn't hold any weight. But this was all trial and error, wasn't it? Even now, she was reconsidering the shape she had in mind, pulling the physical structure in various directions and thinking about support struts maybe, or thinner reeds or vines to weave in and out of those she'd cut, to make a sturdier shape.
"It's… a basket?" Connor offered and she grinned, nudging him with her shoulder.
"It's an attempt at one, yeah."
"Hey." He nudged her back. "It's a really good attempt." His face, when she glanced up at him, was open, smiling widely in spite of his lack of success.
She looked out over the water, searching for - and spotting - the point where his line had gone in.
"No luck?"
"Nah." It was only now he started to look a little dispirited. "Looks like we're back to not-scallops and not-tasty seaweed." He tugged again on the line. "Know what I really want?"
She knew what was coming. "Oh, don't." It didn't stop him.
"Pizza."
Her stomach growled again. "Pepperoni," she said.
"Stuffed crust." It wasn't making anything better - if anything, her stomach just protested even more loudly. Connor didn't seem to hear it. "You know what? When we get home, the first thing I'm going to do is go to Pizza Hut. The all you can eat buffet."
Oh God. Her mouth was watering and another wave of homesickness washed over it. She swallowed it down, tried to lighten things up, as much for her sake as his. "I think you probably need to have a shower first," she teased, nudging him again, and he smiled, a little wistfully. "And a shave."
"So, I'll order in. Have a shower while they deliver." His smile ebbed away. "When we get home," he added, his voice dropping to a low murmur.
"They do pepperoni stuffed crust now, you know," she offered, like that was going to help any.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said, pulling her knees up again and wrapping her arms around them. "We'll get mushrooms too. And garlic bread. Lots of it."
"Yeah." He tugged on his line again and she didn't miss the way that he leaned fractionally into her, just for a moment, a warm pressure against her side before it was gone. She played with the strands of reed by her side, the tufts that she'd pulled off, because it was better than going completely girly and just begging him for a hug.
He'd give her one, she knew, and he probably wouldn't try for more. It had been ages since Connor had flirted with her like that. She'd blown him off too many times when he'd just been the geeky undergrad and her focus had been on the lean and competent form of Stephen. Back before she'd realised where her attention really should have been, who she really fit with.
She loved Stephen, she supposed. In a way. As a mate. But Connor…
She looked out over the river and caught sight of another insect this time, something not quite like a beetle but the shape lacking the lean lines of a dragonfly. It buzzed low across the water, and its wings beat so fast that they blurred, the movements coming together until it looked like it had two tufts sprouting from its body where its wings should be.
Her fingers stroked idly along the lines of the reed heads and then…
"Connor?"
"Hmm? You know, I don't think we're going to catch anything here." He looked up and down the riverbank, as though that was going to magically provide some inspiration. "Maybe there aren't any fish. Maybe the crocodiles have eaten them all."
"Oh, don't," she said again, frowning this time, and he looked over at her, mouthing a silent 'sorry' when he realised that the comment really had disconcerted her.
"Maybe," she said, by way of an acceptance of his apology, "we just need to make the lure look more like a fly."
"You mean like fly fishing?"
"No, Connor. I mean like pigeon fishing."
He rolled his eyes at that before shooting her another grin. "D'you have something in mind?"
She held up one of the reed heads, twisting it around and around in the air so that the tufts flapped. They didn't look much like flies, but they looked more like flies than her earring did. Besides, fish were stupid, weren't they?
Connor looked dubious but sighed in a long suffering way, one that would have got him a quick kick up the backside if she'd had either the energy or the inclination.
"What are we going to use to tie it on?"
Now it was her turn to roll her eyes. Like that was the worst of their problems.
In the end, they settled on a blade of one of the long grasses that grew along the bank, wrapping it around and around the lure, tucking it over and under until it looked like it would hold. The end result sort of looked like a fly. If you were extremely short-sighted and thought that flies were sort of lopsided and green.
She just hoped that any fish that there were lurking nearby, assuming that there were any and that Connor's mythical crocodiles - she shuddered at the thought - hadn't eaten them all, were fooled.
Connor threw his line out again. The foliage they'd wrapped around it wouldn't let it sink this time so it floated on the surface, bobbing up and down. Connor pulled it in slowly, leaving ripples in its wake, and then he cast it out again, further this time so that once again it landed with a soft plop underneath the low hanging branches, leaning over the water on the other bank.
The seventh or eighth time he did it, something dark moved under the surface and then the lure disappeared, tugged down into the depths.
Her fingers tightened on Connor's arm, digging in. "Don't lose it," she whispered, her eyes fixed on the point where the lure had vanished. "Connor…"
"Shut up," he whispered back, his more like a stage whisper, the lines of his body tense and his face focused, his jaw jutting out the way it did when he was worked up about something. He started to pull the line in, slowly, hand over hand and she grew more and more tense the closer whatever it was grew to the shore.
And then she could see it, a distinct fish like shape, something brown in the brownish water, well camouflaged. It wasn't huge but even so - fish. Something new and something edible, which was a hell of a lot more than they'd had before.
She took in a deep breath and held it in, watching the brown shape move closer and closer to the bank as Connor gently played the line, not tugging too hard in case their makeshift hook slipped loose. And then it was there, right next to the bank, and she couldn't wait any longer. She left Connor pulling the line tight and scooted down to the edge of their rock, leaning over to slide her hands underneath their fish and flip it out.
It landed with a wet slap on the rock, splashing the pair of them with water and fish slime as it flopped about, its mouth gaping and its gills opening and shutting frantically. Connor grabbed for it as it started to slide back down towards the river, falling down onto his knees with a crack that made her wince in sympathy, and she came up on its other side, her knife in her hands. One sharp blow to the back of its head and its thrashing eased. A second blow and it was down to quivering. She couldn't feel any sympathy for it, not when the hunger was a constant presence in both of their lives.
It finally stilled, only giving an occasional twitch, and the gaping mouth slackened. She sat back on her heels, panting heavily in spite of the oxygen rich atmosphere, and just stared at it.
It looked like a fish. Just a normal, boring brown fish, with gills and scales and fins and a tail. It was the only thing they'd seen so far that wasn't subtly wrong in some way, at least to her eyes. And as for Connor…
Like her, he was panting, either with effort or excitement or both, but he was still managing to grin, wide and bright, ear to ear and his eyes were just lit up like a little kid's. He was staring down at the fish - the fish he'd caught, that between them they'd caught with nothing but an earring and some imagination. And a hell of a lot of determination when it came to that.
Her mouth widened at the thought until her grin was as bright and broad as his. "Well done, you," she said, unable to hold in the excitement, the sheer thrill of it all, any longer. "Well done!"
He finally tore his eyes away from the fish but his grin didn't dampen any as he looked up at her and then held up his palm in the classic high five gesture. She met it, pressing their palms together and matching his grin with one of her own.
"So," he said, staring back down at his fish and looking for all the world like he was resisting the urge to stroke it. "Want to try catching another one?"
She laughed, the sound bubbling up from deep within her, and his grin - impossibly - widened even further.
"I mean," he continued, "now that you've made that basket, it'd be a pity not to fill it."
She swiped at him and he ducked, but his grin still didn't dim. Neither did hers as she watched him ease the hook out of the fish's mouth. It had held up pretty well, although the makeshift body they'd patched together hadn't survived; it was slimy and mangled, and looked even less like a fly than it had before. She left Connor dealing with that; if he was going to catch more, they would need something to carry the fish home with them and while her first attempt hadn't been much cop, she wasn't going to quit trying. Quitters never won, as her mum said, and the fact that Connor had persevered and succeeded made her even more determined. The reed bed beckoned, and she needed to wash the fish's blood from her blade and her hands anyway.
As she rinsed both in the water, she spotted something on the riverbed, something bright and glittering. For a moment, she thought it was a trick of the light but it stayed steady, even as the water moved around it.
She reached down, plucking the rock from the riverbed and thinking that this was it, this was the point where their luck changed for the better.
"Connor…?"
Something dark came out of the water, something dark and huge and hungry. She screamed, she knew she did, scrabbling backwards, kicking out desperately with her feet and just trying to get away.
One of her feet struck it and it turned its head but she was already further up the rock, moving like a crab, back and up and away, breath now panting in her throat, her mind a constant, fear-driven litany of, "Bigbigbig… oh God… Oh God…"
She was out of reach, surely she was out of reach, God, she had to be out of reach because it was a fish, a massive, insanely big fish but a fish and fish couldn't get that far out of the water and then it used its fins to haul itself further up the bank and its jaws opened and fish shouldn't have teeth like that, shouldn't be that big and still look like a fish, not a shark and… and… and…
And Connor's hands grabbed her, pulling her further up the bank, his breath panting harshly in her ear and his grip painfully tight as he tugged and pulled her and the fish's too sharp teeth closed over where her foot had been.
She grabbed at Connor, using her flailing feet to leverage her further up the bank, never taking her eyes off the monstrosity that had appeared out of nowhere, and it heaved itself sideways, one huge black eye rolling at her as it disappeared back into the water. She was going to see that eye in her dreams, in her nightmares; it was going to follow her down into the dark each and every night.
"Abby." Connor was rocking her, hands still gripping her tightly as he whispered her name over and over again into her hair. "Abby."
She stared at the ripples it had left behind, huge rings of them disturbing the river, marring its surface from bank to bank. She'd thought was placid, she'd thought… It wasn't. It wasn't. Nothing here was.
"I lost my knife," she said numbly.
Connor's grip tightened and he made a sound like a sob. "I'll make you a new one. Abby, I promise, okay?"
She nodded, her eyes still watching those circles. "You lost your fish too," she whispered and Connor didn't answer her this time, just held on tight while his body shook against hers.
Her fingers were hurting and she opened her hand, staring down numbly at the bright rock sitting in her palm. Iron pyrite - fool's gold.
And then the rain came down again, like it did every night; sheets of water that sounded like the hissing of snakes. It pelted against the surface of the water until she couldn't see the rings anymore, had no idea where that thing had disappeared to. Connor hitched her further up the bank, pulling her to her feet and pulling her closer, wrapping his arms tight around her. She was glad for the rain, glad that it hid the tears that were now streaming down her face, shock and grief and rage all mixed up together and all pouring out. Glad that it hid any tears that there may have been on Connor's face too because she couldn't do this, she wasn't strong enough to do this for both of them, she wasn't.
She wanted to go home. Go home to pizza and her mum and to where the only type of fish she had to deal with were the ones that came in newspaper.
It had been two weeks. Two weeks in a world where even the fish were monsters, where nothing, nothing was right. Where everything was wrong.
Two weeks, and no one was coming. No one. They were all alone, were always going to be alone; nothing but her and Connor and the rain.
Day 6
It was raining again. Nick's office was near the roof, tucked out of the way of the hustle and bustle that typified a normal day at the ARC, and he was one of the few lucky enough to have a window. The rain streamed down it, droplets joining until they formed trails, until everything outside was obscured and the only sound he could hear was the white noise of it drumming against the roof.
He turned his attention away from the window and back to his laptop screen where the video he'd found, taken at one of the early anomaly sites, was streaming over the network.
Abby's face smiled back at him, her eyes crinkling at something Connor was undoubtedly saying. It had to be Connor - the camera was bouncing around too much for it to be Stephen. Out of all of them, only Connor grew that excited, so excited that he couldn't even keep still.
Stephen loomed into the frame, the expression on his face amused and tolerant. Definitely Connor behind the camera then - only Connor got that indulgent expression, even these days. And then Stephen reached up, around the camera, taking it back from whoever had been holding it.
He'd been right - it had been Connor. He appeared in shot, heading straight for Abby, of course, and wearing that bloody stupid hat. Nick's throat ached at the sight of the pair of them, teasing each other and just happy. Safe.
"Cutter?"
He looked up into Jenny's face, poised in the doorway but for once not barging straight in. She twisted her face apologetically.
"Sorry. Anomaly on the south-east coast. Lester wants us to move out as soon as possible, okay?"
He hadn't even heard the alarm, drowned out as it was by the driving rain.
"Okay," he said, nodding at her just to reinforce that. She gave him a searching look but didn't comment, just dipped her head and moved away, probably to find Stephen.
Nick looked back at his laptop screen, where Connor was now leaning into Abby, pointing out something just off screen. There was no need for him to lean that closely and Nick didn't need to see the wistful yearning expression that crossed his face as Abby looked away, in the direction he was pointing, to know exactly why he had.
And then Stephen, like any good scientist, moved the camera towards whatever it was that Connor had pointed out and the pair of them disappeared from view completely.
Nick reached up and grasped the lid of the laptop, closing it down and waiting for the blinking lights to tell him that it had gone into hibernation mode before he finally stood up and pulled his jacket off the back of his chair.
Five days, maybe six if they were unlucky, and they'd have Abby and Connor back.
Five days, maybe six. He counted them down. Five days, maybe six; that was all.
He wasn't much of a praying man, but he prayed for that.
End Book One.