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Title: Several Miles from the Sun: Book 2
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: 15
Spoilers: This is an AU from 2.04, so spoilers up until the end of that episode
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~41,000 words in total. This part around 4,100.
Status: WIP
Author's Notes: Book One was originally written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
temaris. Many thanks to her and to aithine for the whip cracking and beta services.
The title - and quotes - are from 'The Sun' by Maroon 5.
Summary: Taking two steps forward and three steps back.
Chapter Listing and Links
~*~
cause things ain't how they used to be
Day 17
"I want to go back to the anomaly site."
Abby tensed, feeling the burn of it in her shoulders, all the way down to where her fingers were resting against her shins. Her fingers curled, digging into the flesh of her legs. Connor's voice was low and he was refusing to look at her, preferring to watch his hands digging into the sand, parting his fingers to let the grains trickle through.
She'd been expecting this. No. She'd been expecting something like this if not this exactly but it didn't make it any less frustrating. She didn't need it - neither of them did. She - both of them - were exhausted, worn down to the bone it felt like and... she really didn't need Connor to be an idiot about it.
Intellectually she understood where he was coming from. She'd felt safe yesterday, just for those few short hours of peace, and then life had reared up and reminded her brutally that there was no such thing as safety, not here. She was probably grieving for it or some other psychological claptrap. She'd picked up enough from the magazines her mother had devoured when Abby had been young enough to still live in the same house to be able to categorise it along those lines.
But she was beginning to realise that understanding something intellectually and actually feeling it were two different things.
She took a deep breath and stretched out her fingers, sliding them down her shins. They left red crescents behind where they'd dug too deeply into the skin. They weren't deep enough to bleed and they'd fade. She could only hope that this weirdness between Connor and her would fade eventually too. As it was, she had no idea how to handle it, and it was all too easy to put the walls up and go on the defensive. Against Connor, of all people.
But then Connor had barely spoken to her since yesterday and she was already narked at him because of it. She didn't want to have to deal with it, or with him. She was too bloody shattered to deal with it. She wanted...
Her fingers started to curl again, twitching with irritation and exhaustion, and she took another deep breath, staring out at the ocean. She didn't know what she wanted, not exactly, but it wasn't to be given the cold shoulder by Connor. It wasn't like Connor to hold a grudge - not for long - and he hadn't been in any danger yesterday. The thought of it made her breath hitch in her throat, set her heart pounding in her chest and she took another deep breath, holding it down and uncurling her fingers, trying to let go of that tension.
She didn't deserve this. Any of it - Connor's attitude or the fear that woke her up countless times in the night, imagining teeth and claws tearing her apart. She didn't deserve it but she had no idea how to deal with a Connor who wasn't talking to her. He needed to pull his head out of his backside and realise that.
"We can't," she snapped, finally looking at him because she wasn't going to be the one who was being petty. Her tone probably wasn't helping the situation any but... but it wasn't her being an idiot. She wasn't the one who wasn't talking to him. The unfairness of it made her jaw clench until her teeth ached.
Connor's jaw tensed too, she could see it in the muscle twitching in his cheek, but he still wouldn't look at her. She had to stop herself from ripping his stupid face off, taking more deep, even breaths until the homicidal impulses had died down to something more manageable.
The air still tasted wrong, even after all this time, and that didn't help either.
"If the anomaly opens again -"
"If the anomaly opens again, we'll see it."
She snapped the words out, fast and furiously, and he flinched. He was still avoiding her eyes and she felt a brief pang of regret for her tone before she tamped it down, stamping on it ruthlessly. She wanted him to at least look at her instead of glaring out over the ocean. She deserved that much, at least. Didn't she?
She was building up to fight, she knew it, all of her fear and frustration bubbling up and looking for release, and Connor was looking like a pretty good target, especially when he kept sticking his stupid head up above the bloody parapet. Especially when he wouldn't even look at her. But knowing the reasons for her anger and her irritation didn't help much. Nothing was helping. It was all churning up in her, tight in her chest and her shoulders, and she didn't know how to deal with it, not with this. Not with things that were spiralling so far and so fast out of her control. Kicking Connor's backside was better than being the girl and bursting into tears. If she did that, Connor might feel like he had to look after her and then where would they be? He'd be crap at it.
Wouldn't he?
Maybe he wouldn't be crap at it and that was another one of the things she didn't want to think about. It would be too easy to give into the impulse, to lean on him more than she was already doing. That would just drown the pair of them. She... cared for him, maybe, even when he was being moronic. Even when they were fighting and his stubbornness was making her teeth - and her heart - ache. But she wasn't stupid. She wished she could be but she knew he wasn't strong enough, not to hold the pair of them up, even if he wanted to. She'd like to believe that he could but... It was better to jut her jaw out, just like Connor, and glare at the side of his stupid head than it was to give in. Or even give up, like he was doing.
He took a deep breath and said, "Abby -"
"Connor." So what if she mimicked his tone, using the same intonation but giving it an extra whiny twist? It got a reaction, and that helped. It was all she really wanted right then, just something that told her that he was there, with her, paying attention. He turned to look at her, his mouth a thin line and his eyes hot.
"What if we don't see it?"
Trust Connor to get stubborn now. Why couldn't he have waited just a bit longer before he grew a spine?
"We will."
She hated him for making her doubt that, even for a second.
"But what if we don't?" His tone was heated now too as she pushed herself to her feet, getting closer to him like she could physically drive the message home. He wasn't going to let it drop and she hated him just a little bit more for that, feeling it swirl around inside her, hot and acidic. It was better than the emptiness that had been there before. "What if... what if it already had opened and we just don't know about it? What if someone's come through, Abby?"
"What if they have?" And there it was, the doubt, spilling out of her mouth like she couldn't stop it, burning all the way. And she couldn't stop it, no matter how hard she tried to tamp it down and that was his fault too, all that fear bubbling up behind it. She couldn't lean on him, she couldn't and she couldn't help but let him lean on her, just a little. "What if they have come through and what if they went straight back? What if they've given up?"
He rocked back like she'd hit him and maybe she had, sort of. She'd been shouting by the end and even now she could hear the echoes of it coming back. Or perhaps that was just her imagination - her imagination and her guilty conscience, following hard on the heels of her outburst. Maybe it was just Connor's stunned silence that made the words sound like they rang on and on.
It was too late to take them back now.
"They wouldn't," he whispered and it was drowned out by the rushing of blood in her ears. "Abby, they wouldn't."
"No?" Her voice was harsh, tearing at her throat. Her sinuses felt tight again, and her eyes prickled and burnt and neither of those things had anything to do with the too bright sun or the salt rich air. She took all of that, twisted it into something sharp and hard and hit him with it. "Sure about that, are you, Connor?"
He didn't rock back on his heels this time but his eyes widened, his face shocked and slack as he processed it. She hated herself for that but wouldn't - couldn't - let go of her anger, not when it was the only thing keeping her going. Not when everything else was going to drag her down if she didn't find something to keep her moving.
"Abby." His voice was barely above a whisper and she had to strain to hear him over the sound of the surf. But she couldn't walk away, not with Connor looking at her like that, like she'd ripped away everything that was holding him up. She wasn't that much of a bitch. "Abby, if we stay here, we'll die."
"Connor." Again she mimicked his inflection, but it wasn't something she'd done consciously. It just... came out like that, just as pleading as her name had been on his lips. She leaned in closer, getting into his personal space but the anger was slipping away from her, sliding through her fingers like the sand had slid through Connor's and just leaving the grief and the fear behind. "Walking back to the anomaly would be suicide." Why couldn't he understand that?
"No." He took a step back, shaking his head stubbornly. His eyes never left hers even while he was backing away from her. "We've got to... Abby, what if they come through and they don't know where we are? What if they don't know where to look?"
"We left markers." That had been his idea and why did he have so little faith in them now? She couldn't help but feel cheated by that as another one of the few things holding her up was stripped away. "Connor..."
He was shaking his head now, his eyes never leaving her face, but he wasn't disagreeing with her. At least not on that point, she didn't think.
"It's not enough." His voice cracked a little and she pretended to ignore it, her own nerves stripped too raw to have anything left over for him. "They won't know how far we've gone, or even if we're alive. Abby, we've got to give them more. We've got to."
"We've got no way of carrying any water." She said it slowly, spelling it out to him because that seemed to be what he needed to finally get it. "We've got no spare food. For God's sake, Connor, we're living hand to mouth and we're barely coping as it is and you want to what? Go trekking back the way we came just in case there's something more we can do? When we barely made it this far, never mind going back. Rainwater and no food, Connor. Remember?"
He didn't answer her but his eyes dropped and he was back to not looking at her, his jaw set stubbornly. But there were shadows under his eyes, dark bruises put there by the days they'd spent scrubbing around, desperate to survive. This... this place was hard and dangerous but it was better than the alternative. Why couldn't he get that?
"It would be suicide and I'm not ready to die for it. Are you?"
He wouldn't answer her, but he was staring across the bay, back towards where they'd come through, and that was answer enough. She felt the tears stinging behind her eyes, in the back of her nose and throat, and held on with everything she had left, which wasn't much.
"If you go..." She said it softly but the words still came out razor sharp, honed by her grief and her fear. "If you go, Connor, I'm not going with you."
Again, that got a reaction, Connor's head whipping around to stare at her, his eyes widening again and that look on his face, the one that said she'd struck home. She met his gaze just long enough so that he could see the truth of her statement and then she turned away, unable to look at him any longer, and trudged back up the beach towards their tiny shelter.
Connor didn't follow her and that... that finally broke her.
She didn't bother to stop the tears this time but they dried quickly, sucked up by the heat of the day. They were gone by the time she'd reached the safety of their cave.
She sat down heavily on the sandy floor inside, no longer able to deny to herself that she was hiding, and stared out into the blinding sunlight for long minutes until her vision blurred again. It was cooler in here than outside and there was nothing to dry the tears this time. She let them fall; Connor wouldn't see them.
Connor wasn't coming back.
It was too big a thought for her brain to cope with. It should have terrified her, or infuriated her, or both, but instead she was just... empty. Frozen. Drained of everything including hope.
Connor wasn't coming back and she sat there, her bum slowly going numb on the cool, damp sand, staring out at the brutal sundrenched landscape as the shadows grew longer and shifted across the sky.
She wanted...
If she left now, maybe...
It had been hours but Connor wasn't fast. She could catch up, if she could find the energy to move, the will to. Connor...
Connor had left her. He'd just... left her. She wanted to think that he'd come back, that he'd make it to the anomaly site in one piece and do whatever he felt he had to and then come back to her, safe and sound, but even if he did, even if he came back... he'd left her.
That was an even bigger thought to cope with and she just... couldn't.
The shadows outside shifted again and she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and blinking several times. Time had done what the coolness of the cave couldn't; her face felt stiff with salt where the tears had finally dried and her eyes were gummy and tired.
This time it was a noise outside, not a shadow moving, and she froze in place, every part of her body tensing. It came again, a low scratching sound, and she began to push herself upright, all of her muscles protesting, stiffened by hours of inactivity. It slowed her down, all except for her heart, which beat fast and furious. She reached into her pocket but Connor had the pocket knife, his knife. Connor had left with his knife and, in spite of his promises, he hadn't made her another flint one.
Connor... God, she'd been so worried about him, even while furious with him, and now... he'd never know what happened. And he'd promised.
She finally made it to her feet, determined that, whatever the hell it was that had chosen to investigate, she was going to meet it head on. She might not have had the knife any longer, but she had her feet and her fists and, if it came to that, her teeth.
She wasn't going down without a fight. Not Abby Maitland.
Another soft, scraping sound and then the clatter of driftwood falling to the floor. It startled her; she hadn't been ready for it, in spite of her mental psyching of herself up, and it made her jump, her rabbit-fast heart skipping a beat.
When Connor finally appeared, outlined against the bright sun outside, she almost took his stupid head off before she realised that it was him and not something with teeth and claws.
The relief of that almost finished her entirely. It took everything she had not to collapse into a sobbing heap but Connor didn't deserve that and it would freak him out. The thought was enough - just - to keep her on her feet.
She couldn't make out his expression at first, not when he was only a silhouette and her heart was still pounding in her chest, making her pant more with shock and fear than exertion. But the he shifted to the side, moving a little away from her and eyeing her uncertainly.
He looked wrecked, as wretched as she felt and she stared at him wordlessly, shocked into silence. His face fell even further when she still said nothing and he slumped back against the rock before his legs seemed to give out and he slumped gracelessly to the floor. He wasn't looking at her now, instead staring off into space but there was no stubbornness in him, not this time.
The wood was scattered around his feet and she took a step forward, then two, her heart refusing to slow down any. She swallowed, and still he didn't move, wouldn't even look up at her. There was defeat in every line of his body, from his slumped shoulders to the hands that hung loosely between his knees, his clever fingers still for once.
It didn't feel like a victory; if anything, she felt like she'd lost. She was exhausted, scared and sad, too wrung out to be more than simply glad that he was here.
She took a couple of steps towards him on legs that shook too much for her comfort, still struck dumb by the fact that he was here, that he'd come back. She had no idea how far he'd got before he'd turned around. She didn't care.
He'd come back.
Only, once she could see beyond the margins of the cave, she realised that he'd never left. The sun had moved and was lower in the sky now, no longer blinding her, but there was still more than enough daylight left to make out the small, neat piles of driftwood placed near the cave, closer and closer to it. How many times had he come back and she'd not heard him, so convinced that he'd gone and left her behind? How many times had he ventured closer before his courage failed, and he made a neat pile before going to collect more wood until he felt he had enough?
Some men brought flowers. Trust Connor to get it so wrong and so right at the same time. Any lingering resentment she'd been feeling evaporated; there was no room for it, not now. There was only room for relief, relief that he was still here, that he hadn't left her. That he wasn't headed on a fool's errand but was here, with her, as safe as either of them could be. Relief and a little shame.
Connor hadn't moved and she swallowed again, opening her mouth before she realised that she had nothing to say, nothing that would make this better.
"I meant it, you know," he said. He still wouldn't look at her, his eyes unfocused as he stared into the distance. "What I said."
"Connor..." She tried to hold onto the relief - and some of the shame - anything that would let her keep a hold of her temper this time. Her temper and her tongue. He didn't deserve anything less. "I was... It's too dangerous..." She didn't even try to disguise her pleading as anything else, no anger to mask it this time.
He didn't seem to hear her. Or see her, for that matter, not with the way in which his eyes stayed unfocused. Unfocused and too bright, too wet for her peace of mind.
"I mean... I meant what I said when we first came through the anomaly," he said, stuttering slightly over the words and still not looking at her. It sucked all of the words right out of her, leaving her hollow and shaking. "I... I can't lose you. I..." He trailed off, the tears he'd been trying to hold back finally falling, and he scrubbed his sleeve impatiently across his face, still refusing to look at her. "I'm not... You're my best mate, Abby, and I'm not going to be weird about it, okay? I promise."
He didn't seem to really want an answer to that, which was good because she was still lost, still searching for something, anything to say that would make this all right for him. Like anything could when, like her, it seemed he'd just been pushed too far.
"I just..." And words seemed to fail him too as he wiped the tears away again. "I needed you to know that, yeah? That I wouldn't go anywhere without you."
She swallowed against the lump in her throat, her own eyes welling up. "Okay," she whispered, the word coming out fractured, almost as broken as Connor. "You're my best mate too, Connor." The 'I'm sorry' went unsaid, more because if she said another word she would cry and then it would get all messy and complicated.
He finally looked up, giving her a watery smile that failed completely to hit the mark. The look in his eyes was still wretched, and, again, there were no words that she could find to make it any better. He didn't hold her eyes for long before nodding and swallowing his remaining tears down, using his sleeve to wipe his nose this time rather than his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet, still not meeting her eyes, and sniffed loudly.
"It's..." His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat, sniffing again. "There's a couple of hours of light still left. We should probably... um... try and find something to eat. Make up the fire for the night." He hadn't phrased any of that as questions but he still glanced sideways at her, checking that she was okay with that, and she managed to muster up a small smile for him from somewhere, her heart breaking all over again. The smile felt strained around the edges, like it didn't fit on her face quite right, stretching the skin of her cheeks where they were still stiff from her own crying jag.
Connor's answering smile was no better but it was better than silence would have been. He didn't hold her gaze for long, his eyes skittering around to pan across the beach as he swallowed again, nervously, rubbing his hands against his thighs for a moment before letting them hang by his sides.
She couldn't find the words to help, but then she'd always favoured actions over them. She caught the hand nearest to her and squeezed his fingers gently, giving him another smile, small and serious this time, when he looked over at her.
It wasn't much, but this time Connor's answering smile was a little less fractured; still small and sad but less broken. He squeezed her hand back for a second before releasing it and moving away, just a couple of steps, his focus supposedly on the beach and the search for food.
She wasn't fooled and she'd be lying - to herself if not to anyone else - if she'd said it didn't hurt. But it was a dull ache, a soft and sad one, rather than the bone deep, stabbing one of his absence. And if she was that raw... well, she couldn't blame him for wanting to keep his distance for the moment. Not this time, anyway.
But it didn't mean she was about to let him out of her sight.
This time when he headed down the beach, she followed him.
Author: alyse
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing: Abby/Connor
Rating: 15
Spoilers: This is an AU from 2.04, so spoilers up until the end of that episode
Disclaimer: Primeval and its characters belong to Impossible Pictures. No copyright infringement is intended. This is fanfiction, written solely for love of the show.
Word Count: ~41,000 words in total. This part around 4,100.
Status: WIP
Author's Notes: Book One was originally written for
temaris. Many thanks to her and to aithine for the whip cracking and beta services.The title - and quotes - are from 'The Sun' by Maroon 5.
Summary: Taking two steps forward and three steps back.
Chapter Listing and Links
~*~
cause things ain't how they used to be
Day 17
"I want to go back to the anomaly site."
Abby tensed, feeling the burn of it in her shoulders, all the way down to where her fingers were resting against her shins. Her fingers curled, digging into the flesh of her legs. Connor's voice was low and he was refusing to look at her, preferring to watch his hands digging into the sand, parting his fingers to let the grains trickle through.
She'd been expecting this. No. She'd been expecting something like this if not this exactly but it didn't make it any less frustrating. She didn't need it - neither of them did. She - both of them - were exhausted, worn down to the bone it felt like and... she really didn't need Connor to be an idiot about it.
Intellectually she understood where he was coming from. She'd felt safe yesterday, just for those few short hours of peace, and then life had reared up and reminded her brutally that there was no such thing as safety, not here. She was probably grieving for it or some other psychological claptrap. She'd picked up enough from the magazines her mother had devoured when Abby had been young enough to still live in the same house to be able to categorise it along those lines.
But she was beginning to realise that understanding something intellectually and actually feeling it were two different things.
She took a deep breath and stretched out her fingers, sliding them down her shins. They left red crescents behind where they'd dug too deeply into the skin. They weren't deep enough to bleed and they'd fade. She could only hope that this weirdness between Connor and her would fade eventually too. As it was, she had no idea how to handle it, and it was all too easy to put the walls up and go on the defensive. Against Connor, of all people.
But then Connor had barely spoken to her since yesterday and she was already narked at him because of it. She didn't want to have to deal with it, or with him. She was too bloody shattered to deal with it. She wanted...
Her fingers started to curl again, twitching with irritation and exhaustion, and she took another deep breath, staring out at the ocean. She didn't know what she wanted, not exactly, but it wasn't to be given the cold shoulder by Connor. It wasn't like Connor to hold a grudge - not for long - and he hadn't been in any danger yesterday. The thought of it made her breath hitch in her throat, set her heart pounding in her chest and she took another deep breath, holding it down and uncurling her fingers, trying to let go of that tension.
She didn't deserve this. Any of it - Connor's attitude or the fear that woke her up countless times in the night, imagining teeth and claws tearing her apart. She didn't deserve it but she had no idea how to deal with a Connor who wasn't talking to her. He needed to pull his head out of his backside and realise that.
"We can't," she snapped, finally looking at him because she wasn't going to be the one who was being petty. Her tone probably wasn't helping the situation any but... but it wasn't her being an idiot. She wasn't the one who wasn't talking to him. The unfairness of it made her jaw clench until her teeth ached.
Connor's jaw tensed too, she could see it in the muscle twitching in his cheek, but he still wouldn't look at her. She had to stop herself from ripping his stupid face off, taking more deep, even breaths until the homicidal impulses had died down to something more manageable.
The air still tasted wrong, even after all this time, and that didn't help either.
"If the anomaly opens again -"
"If the anomaly opens again, we'll see it."
She snapped the words out, fast and furiously, and he flinched. He was still avoiding her eyes and she felt a brief pang of regret for her tone before she tamped it down, stamping on it ruthlessly. She wanted him to at least look at her instead of glaring out over the ocean. She deserved that much, at least. Didn't she?
She was building up to fight, she knew it, all of her fear and frustration bubbling up and looking for release, and Connor was looking like a pretty good target, especially when he kept sticking his stupid head up above the bloody parapet. Especially when he wouldn't even look at her. But knowing the reasons for her anger and her irritation didn't help much. Nothing was helping. It was all churning up in her, tight in her chest and her shoulders, and she didn't know how to deal with it, not with this. Not with things that were spiralling so far and so fast out of her control. Kicking Connor's backside was better than being the girl and bursting into tears. If she did that, Connor might feel like he had to look after her and then where would they be? He'd be crap at it.
Wouldn't he?
Maybe he wouldn't be crap at it and that was another one of the things she didn't want to think about. It would be too easy to give into the impulse, to lean on him more than she was already doing. That would just drown the pair of them. She... cared for him, maybe, even when he was being moronic. Even when they were fighting and his stubbornness was making her teeth - and her heart - ache. But she wasn't stupid. She wished she could be but she knew he wasn't strong enough, not to hold the pair of them up, even if he wanted to. She'd like to believe that he could but... It was better to jut her jaw out, just like Connor, and glare at the side of his stupid head than it was to give in. Or even give up, like he was doing.
He took a deep breath and said, "Abby -"
"Connor." So what if she mimicked his tone, using the same intonation but giving it an extra whiny twist? It got a reaction, and that helped. It was all she really wanted right then, just something that told her that he was there, with her, paying attention. He turned to look at her, his mouth a thin line and his eyes hot.
"What if we don't see it?"
Trust Connor to get stubborn now. Why couldn't he have waited just a bit longer before he grew a spine?
"We will."
She hated him for making her doubt that, even for a second.
"But what if we don't?" His tone was heated now too as she pushed herself to her feet, getting closer to him like she could physically drive the message home. He wasn't going to let it drop and she hated him just a little bit more for that, feeling it swirl around inside her, hot and acidic. It was better than the emptiness that had been there before. "What if... what if it already had opened and we just don't know about it? What if someone's come through, Abby?"
"What if they have?" And there it was, the doubt, spilling out of her mouth like she couldn't stop it, burning all the way. And she couldn't stop it, no matter how hard she tried to tamp it down and that was his fault too, all that fear bubbling up behind it. She couldn't lean on him, she couldn't and she couldn't help but let him lean on her, just a little. "What if they have come through and what if they went straight back? What if they've given up?"
He rocked back like she'd hit him and maybe she had, sort of. She'd been shouting by the end and even now she could hear the echoes of it coming back. Or perhaps that was just her imagination - her imagination and her guilty conscience, following hard on the heels of her outburst. Maybe it was just Connor's stunned silence that made the words sound like they rang on and on.
It was too late to take them back now.
"They wouldn't," he whispered and it was drowned out by the rushing of blood in her ears. "Abby, they wouldn't."
"No?" Her voice was harsh, tearing at her throat. Her sinuses felt tight again, and her eyes prickled and burnt and neither of those things had anything to do with the too bright sun or the salt rich air. She took all of that, twisted it into something sharp and hard and hit him with it. "Sure about that, are you, Connor?"
He didn't rock back on his heels this time but his eyes widened, his face shocked and slack as he processed it. She hated herself for that but wouldn't - couldn't - let go of her anger, not when it was the only thing keeping her going. Not when everything else was going to drag her down if she didn't find something to keep her moving.
"Abby." His voice was barely above a whisper and she had to strain to hear him over the sound of the surf. But she couldn't walk away, not with Connor looking at her like that, like she'd ripped away everything that was holding him up. She wasn't that much of a bitch. "Abby, if we stay here, we'll die."
"Connor." Again she mimicked his inflection, but it wasn't something she'd done consciously. It just... came out like that, just as pleading as her name had been on his lips. She leaned in closer, getting into his personal space but the anger was slipping away from her, sliding through her fingers like the sand had slid through Connor's and just leaving the grief and the fear behind. "Walking back to the anomaly would be suicide." Why couldn't he understand that?
"No." He took a step back, shaking his head stubbornly. His eyes never left hers even while he was backing away from her. "We've got to... Abby, what if they come through and they don't know where we are? What if they don't know where to look?"
"We left markers." That had been his idea and why did he have so little faith in them now? She couldn't help but feel cheated by that as another one of the few things holding her up was stripped away. "Connor..."
He was shaking his head now, his eyes never leaving her face, but he wasn't disagreeing with her. At least not on that point, she didn't think.
"It's not enough." His voice cracked a little and she pretended to ignore it, her own nerves stripped too raw to have anything left over for him. "They won't know how far we've gone, or even if we're alive. Abby, we've got to give them more. We've got to."
"We've got no way of carrying any water." She said it slowly, spelling it out to him because that seemed to be what he needed to finally get it. "We've got no spare food. For God's sake, Connor, we're living hand to mouth and we're barely coping as it is and you want to what? Go trekking back the way we came just in case there's something more we can do? When we barely made it this far, never mind going back. Rainwater and no food, Connor. Remember?"
He didn't answer her but his eyes dropped and he was back to not looking at her, his jaw set stubbornly. But there were shadows under his eyes, dark bruises put there by the days they'd spent scrubbing around, desperate to survive. This... this place was hard and dangerous but it was better than the alternative. Why couldn't he get that?
"It would be suicide and I'm not ready to die for it. Are you?"
He wouldn't answer her, but he was staring across the bay, back towards where they'd come through, and that was answer enough. She felt the tears stinging behind her eyes, in the back of her nose and throat, and held on with everything she had left, which wasn't much.
"If you go..." She said it softly but the words still came out razor sharp, honed by her grief and her fear. "If you go, Connor, I'm not going with you."
Again, that got a reaction, Connor's head whipping around to stare at her, his eyes widening again and that look on his face, the one that said she'd struck home. She met his gaze just long enough so that he could see the truth of her statement and then she turned away, unable to look at him any longer, and trudged back up the beach towards their tiny shelter.
Connor didn't follow her and that... that finally broke her.
She didn't bother to stop the tears this time but they dried quickly, sucked up by the heat of the day. They were gone by the time she'd reached the safety of their cave.
She sat down heavily on the sandy floor inside, no longer able to deny to herself that she was hiding, and stared out into the blinding sunlight for long minutes until her vision blurred again. It was cooler in here than outside and there was nothing to dry the tears this time. She let them fall; Connor wouldn't see them.
Connor wasn't coming back.
It was too big a thought for her brain to cope with. It should have terrified her, or infuriated her, or both, but instead she was just... empty. Frozen. Drained of everything including hope.
Connor wasn't coming back and she sat there, her bum slowly going numb on the cool, damp sand, staring out at the brutal sundrenched landscape as the shadows grew longer and shifted across the sky.
She wanted...
If she left now, maybe...
It had been hours but Connor wasn't fast. She could catch up, if she could find the energy to move, the will to. Connor...
Connor had left her. He'd just... left her. She wanted to think that he'd come back, that he'd make it to the anomaly site in one piece and do whatever he felt he had to and then come back to her, safe and sound, but even if he did, even if he came back... he'd left her.
That was an even bigger thought to cope with and she just... couldn't.
The shadows outside shifted again and she pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and blinking several times. Time had done what the coolness of the cave couldn't; her face felt stiff with salt where the tears had finally dried and her eyes were gummy and tired.
This time it was a noise outside, not a shadow moving, and she froze in place, every part of her body tensing. It came again, a low scratching sound, and she began to push herself upright, all of her muscles protesting, stiffened by hours of inactivity. It slowed her down, all except for her heart, which beat fast and furious. She reached into her pocket but Connor had the pocket knife, his knife. Connor had left with his knife and, in spite of his promises, he hadn't made her another flint one.
Connor... God, she'd been so worried about him, even while furious with him, and now... he'd never know what happened. And he'd promised.
She finally made it to her feet, determined that, whatever the hell it was that had chosen to investigate, she was going to meet it head on. She might not have had the knife any longer, but she had her feet and her fists and, if it came to that, her teeth.
She wasn't going down without a fight. Not Abby Maitland.
Another soft, scraping sound and then the clatter of driftwood falling to the floor. It startled her; she hadn't been ready for it, in spite of her mental psyching of herself up, and it made her jump, her rabbit-fast heart skipping a beat.
When Connor finally appeared, outlined against the bright sun outside, she almost took his stupid head off before she realised that it was him and not something with teeth and claws.
The relief of that almost finished her entirely. It took everything she had not to collapse into a sobbing heap but Connor didn't deserve that and it would freak him out. The thought was enough - just - to keep her on her feet.
She couldn't make out his expression at first, not when he was only a silhouette and her heart was still pounding in her chest, making her pant more with shock and fear than exertion. But the he shifted to the side, moving a little away from her and eyeing her uncertainly.
He looked wrecked, as wretched as she felt and she stared at him wordlessly, shocked into silence. His face fell even further when she still said nothing and he slumped back against the rock before his legs seemed to give out and he slumped gracelessly to the floor. He wasn't looking at her now, instead staring off into space but there was no stubbornness in him, not this time.
The wood was scattered around his feet and she took a step forward, then two, her heart refusing to slow down any. She swallowed, and still he didn't move, wouldn't even look up at her. There was defeat in every line of his body, from his slumped shoulders to the hands that hung loosely between his knees, his clever fingers still for once.
It didn't feel like a victory; if anything, she felt like she'd lost. She was exhausted, scared and sad, too wrung out to be more than simply glad that he was here.
She took a couple of steps towards him on legs that shook too much for her comfort, still struck dumb by the fact that he was here, that he'd come back. She had no idea how far he'd got before he'd turned around. She didn't care.
He'd come back.
Only, once she could see beyond the margins of the cave, she realised that he'd never left. The sun had moved and was lower in the sky now, no longer blinding her, but there was still more than enough daylight left to make out the small, neat piles of driftwood placed near the cave, closer and closer to it. How many times had he come back and she'd not heard him, so convinced that he'd gone and left her behind? How many times had he ventured closer before his courage failed, and he made a neat pile before going to collect more wood until he felt he had enough?
Some men brought flowers. Trust Connor to get it so wrong and so right at the same time. Any lingering resentment she'd been feeling evaporated; there was no room for it, not now. There was only room for relief, relief that he was still here, that he hadn't left her. That he wasn't headed on a fool's errand but was here, with her, as safe as either of them could be. Relief and a little shame.
Connor hadn't moved and she swallowed again, opening her mouth before she realised that she had nothing to say, nothing that would make this better.
"I meant it, you know," he said. He still wouldn't look at her, his eyes unfocused as he stared into the distance. "What I said."
"Connor..." She tried to hold onto the relief - and some of the shame - anything that would let her keep a hold of her temper this time. Her temper and her tongue. He didn't deserve anything less. "I was... It's too dangerous..." She didn't even try to disguise her pleading as anything else, no anger to mask it this time.
He didn't seem to hear her. Or see her, for that matter, not with the way in which his eyes stayed unfocused. Unfocused and too bright, too wet for her peace of mind.
"I mean... I meant what I said when we first came through the anomaly," he said, stuttering slightly over the words and still not looking at her. It sucked all of the words right out of her, leaving her hollow and shaking. "I... I can't lose you. I..." He trailed off, the tears he'd been trying to hold back finally falling, and he scrubbed his sleeve impatiently across his face, still refusing to look at her. "I'm not... You're my best mate, Abby, and I'm not going to be weird about it, okay? I promise."
He didn't seem to really want an answer to that, which was good because she was still lost, still searching for something, anything to say that would make this all right for him. Like anything could when, like her, it seemed he'd just been pushed too far.
"I just..." And words seemed to fail him too as he wiped the tears away again. "I needed you to know that, yeah? That I wouldn't go anywhere without you."
She swallowed against the lump in her throat, her own eyes welling up. "Okay," she whispered, the word coming out fractured, almost as broken as Connor. "You're my best mate too, Connor." The 'I'm sorry' went unsaid, more because if she said another word she would cry and then it would get all messy and complicated.
He finally looked up, giving her a watery smile that failed completely to hit the mark. The look in his eyes was still wretched, and, again, there were no words that she could find to make it any better. He didn't hold her eyes for long before nodding and swallowing his remaining tears down, using his sleeve to wipe his nose this time rather than his eyes. He pushed himself to his feet, still not meeting her eyes, and sniffed loudly.
"It's..." His voice was hoarse and he cleared his throat, sniffing again. "There's a couple of hours of light still left. We should probably... um... try and find something to eat. Make up the fire for the night." He hadn't phrased any of that as questions but he still glanced sideways at her, checking that she was okay with that, and she managed to muster up a small smile for him from somewhere, her heart breaking all over again. The smile felt strained around the edges, like it didn't fit on her face quite right, stretching the skin of her cheeks where they were still stiff from her own crying jag.
Connor's answering smile was no better but it was better than silence would have been. He didn't hold her gaze for long, his eyes skittering around to pan across the beach as he swallowed again, nervously, rubbing his hands against his thighs for a moment before letting them hang by his sides.
She couldn't find the words to help, but then she'd always favoured actions over them. She caught the hand nearest to her and squeezed his fingers gently, giving him another smile, small and serious this time, when he looked over at her.
It wasn't much, but this time Connor's answering smile was a little less fractured; still small and sad but less broken. He squeezed her hand back for a second before releasing it and moving away, just a couple of steps, his focus supposedly on the beach and the search for food.
She wasn't fooled and she'd be lying - to herself if not to anyone else - if she'd said it didn't hurt. But it was a dull ache, a soft and sad one, rather than the bone deep, stabbing one of his absence. And if she was that raw... well, she couldn't blame him for wanting to keep his distance for the moment. Not this time, anyway.
But it didn't mean she was about to let him out of her sight.
This time when he headed down the beach, she followed him.
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They're both so close to breaking point - it's heart-wrenching.
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They're both so close to breaking point
Oh, are they? ::veg::
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You do realise that I'm just getting going, right? ::veg::
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Gah! Flail! Meep!
Please 'get going' faster. *makes big puppy eyes for more fic soon*
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Very, very raw and emotional and heart breaking and lovely. I just want them to hug and make-up and it's like right there beneath the surface, and then the fact that they aren't makes it so wonderfully, achingly painful. It makes it very easy to sympathize with poor Connor and Abby. Excellent job, with this whole story. I'm very interested to see it continued even further. (especially with the promise of a happy ending) :)
My favorite lines of this part:
Some men brought flowers. Trust Connor to get it so wrong and so right at the same time.
"Okay," she whispered, the word coming out fractured, almost as broken as Connor.
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wonderful
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Re: wonderful
Thank you so much for taking the time to review :)
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Thin veneer of humanity and all that. I'd like to see what would happen if they were there for longer. Like much longer. *g* But I find it fascinating to see people break.
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And thank you so much for reviewing!