Archive of Our Own ^beta

He holds the knife firmly and presses it against the branch, tensing as he applies force at just the right angle, waiting for it to shear off the next slice of the wood. The chit of bark drops to the woodland floor and Connor examines his increasingly pointed stick once more. He wishes he'd paid more attention to Channel 4 documentaries or Ray Mears or something. Of course he's still alive, and he mostly has Stephen to thank for that. Survival and tracking tips were really the only thing Stephen had ever chatted to him about when they'd been out in the field and whilst most of it had gone in one ear and mindlessly drifted out the other, some of it had indeed stuck instead of his ponderings about theoretical species and gadgets.

Abby is the other person he needs to thank his continued existence on. Her penknife is invaluable even though he's terribly inexperienced with it, but he's given up hope of seeing her again after a couple of weeks. She'll be out there for sure and she's got a better chance than him alone, but he just doesn't think there's much chance he can find her again.

What he doesn't expect is that someone else should find him and he's too busy peering at his wannabe spear to notice the subtle crunch under foot nearby, the dark eyes watching, more than a little impressed by Nick Cutter's protégé.

~

At first he is oblivious, as she would have guessed, relying only on his eyes and loud noises to spy predators and to get him through the tough two months he'd managed to stumble through. What Connor forgot back then was that animals are not all dumb and blundering, so he never seemed to check behind or above, never stopped to listen for signs of company.

It was when she stole his penknife that it changed; put back the next day as stealthily as it had been taken, a message rather than maliciousness. After that he became more conscious of his surroundings, aware he wasn't necessarily alone and now sometimes he would stop in the middle of the clearing as she spied on him and she wonders what it was he'd picked up on precisely. There's an element of delight that blooms when she gets one over him, both almost playing a game, tinged with danger as it must be for him. How long can she follow before he will notice the atmosphere is off and the sounds of his surroundings don't add up?

She always gets bored of it eventually and leaves him to his own devices, but every now and then in between her own travels she comes back to the Cretaceous and locates his sorry trails for a bit of a distraction. It took Connor longer than her to catch on to the way to not merely stay alive but also to survive. A year and a bit on, though and he is doing fairly well for a former geek. More than anything it is a reminder of how far she'd come and how far humans can push themselves when needs be.

~

The first sign of trouble is when her routine fails her - she comes back to find no trail to follow. There is a whole world he could be in and she has no clue where he is. His old haunts and paths are empty except for the native wildlife overrunning them undisturbed again. It's as if he was never here. It's like she's inadvertently taught him their game and he's learnt from her too well for her own good. Defeated, she turns back to the anomaly shining on the hill and steps through with a small regret which is soon cast aside.

It's a long time before she thinks of it again and that is one of her few mistakes. Helen Cutter is as much as a genius in the Cretaceous and a thousand other time lines as she was in her university dealings, but her failing, ever enhanced in the remote lands of the past, is that she does
not understand people other than as objects to be manipulated. Helen has a plan, quite strictly followed and straight to the point of what she wants to achieve, with barely any variance except for her indulgent distractions, but others are motivated by a wider variety of feelings, which she forgets.

~

There is no second sign, there is simply a knife to her throat and a hot breath on her neck as she sits by her fire in the Paleogene Period – but the attacker does not slice her open and let her bleed out. She reckons if that was the idea it would most likely be done already. He doesn't speak, breathing heavily with the rush of adrenaline and she is not sure what to make of his actions.

"What do you want me to say Connor? It is sorry you're looking for, because it won't happen. I think you owe me at least an apology for the nick you're inflicting with that worn-out penknife. You should realise it's actually quite hard work to do what you're threatening with a knife as pathetic as that."

"I've had my fair share of hard work lately."

"I'm sure it was all worth your while. You are alive."

"No thanks to you."

"I wouldn't say that's true. If it weren't for me you'd have still been trundling about the Cretaceous like a fool, probably ending up as Velociraptor dindins."

"I've survived Raptors before -"

" - by sheer luck back then, I'd imagine," she interrupts, almost laughing and feeling the blade sweep her throat a fraction more for that, which he senses, dropping his hand to his side like he suddenly fears for what he could have done.

"What do you want?" he asks as she steps away, swiveling on her heels to face him.

"You're the one with the knife, what do you want?"

Helen steps back. It's a challenge to him as much as her question is because he could be risking his own life by letting her close, but he holds his ground.

"For you to stop following me."

"That could be arranged, if you like."

"But maybe not the way I want it to be," he says, voice catching slightly and her eyes widen in a rare moment of surprise, muscles tensing ready for fight or flight at this unexpected development and the possibility he wants revenge for Nick.

Connor steps closer still, standing straight, and she notices he's taller than she remembers, face more stern, too, with a fragile scar by his left ear that is all too recent. "I can survive alone. You can survive alone. It's not enough though, to just survive."

Helen sneers and turns her face away in disgust, yet still not backing down from their tété-a-tété.

"You want me to take you home, pretend like this year never happened, is that it?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure I belong there anymore. I think I understand now why you couldn't go back, but you told Cutter he could join you didn't you. Stephen too, but neither of them got it and I know you understand what I'm talking about or you'd never have asked them. Now I'm asking you the same thing. I don't care about what happened anymore, there is only here and now, and what's out there." This is said with a stab of his finger to the horizon, unclear if he means the predators always awaiting them out there or the things she has seen that no other human has seen, waiting for another eye to view through the maze of time she knows better than herself.

"If you're really asking me the same thing then say it, don't parrot back my history to me."

"Helen Cutter, do you want to travel with me?"

~

There's a pause where she stares at him contemplating his question, calculating and analysing no doubt. It's uncomfortable to stand under her gaze but he has no choice, it is at least what he would expect from her and these days he values predictability in the face of uncertainty.

"I think that could be arranged," she says matter-of-factly, all the while placing her arms around his shoulders in what he thinks is an uncharacteristic show of either camaraderie or possibly a strange prelude to her type of affection, "Of course, I might not live to regret it, but I dislike missed opportunities more than taking risks."

Connor smiles for what feels like the first time in years – he'd stopped counting the weeks, then months, so who knows how long he's been stranded really – pretty pleased with the outcome of this encounter, though he neatly removes Helen's hands from their resting place, temporarily putting stop whatever she was attempting.

"Why don't you show me something I've never seen before. That was the idea, right? Explore new worlds yadda yadda, but without the aliens."

"You want adventure, Mr Temple," and a flush of dirt thrown by Helen quickly smothers the fire, "I've probably got more than you can handle -"

"I'll bet," he says as he scoops up his rucksack from its hiding place behind a nearby tree.

"Not to mention species that will make you squirm and wish the aliens had landed. But what do you bet?" Helen winks back at him, already walking as she straps her backpack sturdily to her, "I think you'll find that apart from food, which you should never part with voluntarily, the only thing to bet with in this time line or any other within ten million years are your clothes."

Connor gulps and finds himself speechless, which he consider isn't so hard when he's been out of practice. He wonders, too, what he's got himself into, concentrating on moving forward and keeping up. There's going to be plenty of other things to wonder about and wonder over soon that make Helen seem a trivial aspect of this misguided venture, her being a mere facilitator of his survival and education. He knows she'll end up being more than that, not a friend but an ally, maybe more. There's an inevitability to it that looms but of all the possibilities the past presents it doesn't terrify him like it once would have.

There will be other games they'll play because Helen is like that, but there won't be any looking over his shoulder for the dark eyes that search for him – she'll be right there in front of him. It will be him and her until they die, a strange companionship but simple to comprehend and easy to follow after the chase they've led.