Coming Full Circle {3/8}

[shadowcat]

Title: Coming Full Circle {3/8}
Author: enochiansigils and not_from_stars
Artist: azarsuerte
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing/Characters (if no pairing): Kahlil Pierce/Niki Becker
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Completely AU and makes mention of things that happened in the past for Niki's family. Some events made up or embellished for explanations of attitudes.
Word Count: 26,403
Summary: Being in love with the daughter of Captain Becker, Abby Maitland and Connor Temple isn't easy. It's even harder when you're the exact image of your uncle -- a man who hurt them more than anyone else ever has. However, Kahlil Pierce hasn't let that deter him -- especially when he knows that Niki Becker loves him just as much. When Niki doesn't return with the rest of her team after an excursion through an anomaly, Kahlil doesn't stop to think before he goes in to look for her. Finding his injured girlfriend was the easy part. Trapped on the wrong side of anomaly with no way to get home, Kahlil has to use all of his skills to keep Niki safe while at the same time having faith that her family will find a way to bring them home.
Notes: Written for oc_bigbang 2011. We do not own Primeval or the concepts, but Kahlil and Niki are all ours.






Niki moaned softly when she opened her eyes. Her head hurt more than it had before, but so did her knee. She was trying to piece together everything that had happened and then frowned when some things got hazy. However, there was one thing that she remembered perfectly clearly.

"Kahlil?" She called softly. "Kahlil?"

At least, she thought she did.

Kahlil had been sitting at the mouth of the cave, keeping watch. When he heard Niki's soft voice calling for him, he hurried back to her quickly. "Ssh, love," he murmured. "Don't move too much."

"I didn't dream that you were here," she said with relief in her voice.

"No, you didn't," he said with a gentle smile. "I'm right here."

"Thank God."

"I wasn't going to let you face any of this alone. Love you too much for that." He grinned at her before sobering. "How're you feeling? What still hurts? Anything new hurting?"

"My head is killing me and my knee. I think everything else is just bruised."

"Bruised is good. Better than alternatives, at least." And right now, they would take what small bits of good news they could get.

"Much better." She swallowed. "I feel so thirsty Kahlil. Is there water left in the bag?"

He made a quick check. "A little, yes."

"We should find a water source."

"You finish waking up a little more and then I'll go looking." If he was going to be leaving her behind, he wanted her as awake as possible, just in case.

Niki would have nodded, but she was of the mind that the less she moved her head, the less she would want to bitch about it. "How did you rest?"

"Got about... two hours of sleep? A little more, maybe?" Kahlil shrugged. "The rest of the time, I was sitting guard up by the mouth of the cave." He hadn't wanted to sleep too much, hadn't wanted to be asleep while she was also sleeping. Someone needed to be awake.

"I can take watch tonight so you can sleep." She should know better.

"You're still too injured," he said. "After I find a water source, I'll come back and crash for a little bit and you can watch out then, all right?" It was his version of a compromise, which wasn't really much of one. But he'd tried.

She gave him a faint smile, well aware of what he was doing. "Promise?"

"Promise," he said with a solemn nod.

Niki tried to stretch so that she could stand, but her body didn't seem to want to cooperate. "Damn it, body, I am not that injured."

"Your body would beg to differ," he said wryly. "Think you could manage standing if I help you?"

"My body apparently did not get the memo that I am not allowed to be injured," she said calmly. "I think so."

Kahlil crouched, slipping an arm around Niki and slowly helping her move. It took them several minutes of slow, agonizing movement, but they finally got Niki on her feet and looking a little more stable.

"I don't like this being injured thing."

"I know you don't, love. I don't like you being injured, either." He especially didn't like not knowing how to help her.

"You're worried."

"Of course I am."

"I'll be all right, love."

"I'm still allowed to worry. It's in the job description." He stepped back. "You going to be okay by yourself now?"

Niki nodded. "I have the gun and if I need to, I'll sit down."

"You better." He smiled faintly. "I'll try not to be gone long."

She nodded, then gave him a faint smile. "You be careful, too, Kahlil. I can't..." She swallowed. "Just be careful."

"I will be." He ducked his head and kissed her gently. "I promise."

She didn't nod, because her head hurt, but she did reach out and squeeze his hand.

He returned the squeeze, reluctant to leave her even though he knew that finding a water source was pretty high on the list of things that absolutely needed to be done. "Love you," he whispered before stepping back and heading for the mouth of the cave.

Niki watched him go, leaning against the cave wall when he was out of sight. It would do no good for him to realize just how much pain she was in. When she heard him come back, she'd stand up on her own again.



Kahlil was gone for over an hour, which was actually less time than he'd expected to be gone on the hunt for water. Even better, in his opinion, was that the water source he'd found was only about twenty minutes from their cave. Not ideal, but much better than it could've been.

He'd taken her water canteen with him, which meant that he'd been able to fill it up to the top. She'd probably need most of it when he got back. He took a swig, topped it off, and capped it before heading back to the cave.

"Niki?" he called out. "Niki, I'm back!" Obvious, but she was likely exhausted and jumpy; better safe than sorry.

"I'm here," she called from where she had slid to sit down with her back against the cave wall. Her finger relaxed on the trigger when she heard his familiar voice. "Are you all right?" She couldn't help the tremor in her voice.

"I'm fine, love," he assured her as he came into her view. "And I have water, too." He held up the canteen. "Here, have a drink." He held it out to her as he approached. "Drink what you need; the water source I found isn't too far away, only about twenty minutes. I'll make another run out later."

And they'd need to find a way to store more water than just what the canteen could hold.

"Are you sure it's not that far?" Because she wouldn't drink what she needed if she thought otherwise.

"It's only about twenty minutes, love," he assured her as he sat down next to her. "Bit of a hike, but not too bad."

"I can go the next time." Oh, but no.

"Nice try." He smiled faintly. "I'll make another run or two tonight, make sure we've got enough to get us through the evening and most of tomorrow morning -- if we can come up with some idea about something to hold water besides the canteen." He'd been trying to figure it out for a while.

"There might be something in my pack that we can use," she suggested.

"You drink, I'll check the pack." He gave her a look that said she should probably start taking sips of the water.

She knew that look and she slowly took a sip from the canteen and then another. "You think Dani is losing her mind, yet?"

"Dani was losing her mind as soon as she found out, I have a feeling."

"You're probably right. She's going to tear apart the men for leaving me behind. I'm sure they thought I was with them, but when the quake hit it was pretty chaotic."

"If she doesn't tear them apart, Henry will on her behalf."

"I know," Niki's voice was soft. "Mom and the Dads have got to be freaking out. I bet this is bringing back too many memories."

"I'm sure it is." Kahlil went quiet, rummaging through Niki's pack.

"Did I ever tell you what they told me happened?" She didn't think she had.

Kahlil just looked at her and shook his head slightly.

"Mom and Dad -- Connor -- got stuck in the past for over a year when they went chasing after Helen Cutter," she said softly. "Uncle Danny was missing for two years."

"I figured as much," he said softly. "Just from bits and pieces I've heard over the years."

"Mom... Mom hasn't gone through an anomaly since and the Dads haven't gone through them, either. They're afraid of what Mom might do if they got trapped." She sighed quietly. "She had a hard time readjusting to the world when they got back."

"I'll get you back to them, Nik. Somehow, I will." It was a crazy promise, but one he'd do his damnedest to keep.

"I know you will," she said softly, leaning back against the cave wall. "I have no doubts about that."

He came up with a second, empty canteen out of the pack. "If you didn't pack this, remind me to thank whoever did."

"Probably Dad... Becker Dad. He always double checks my pack, just to make sure."

"In that case, I think I'll resist the urge to hug him."

"Yeah, it's possible that he might slug you first." Niki's voice went sad and she closed her eyes, looking away from him.

"Hey..." He turned towards her, holding the canteen. "I know it's not easy for you to be with me, love. I love you."

"Oh Kahlil, it's not that. I love you so much and I can't imagine you not being in my life." She looked at him. "It's just that I don't want the last memory Daddy Connor has of me to be of us fighting."

"It won't be," Kahlil said fiercely. "We're going to get you home, Nik."

She looked up at him and her eyes were filled with tears. "I'm worried, Kahlil." Notice she didn't say she was scared. She wasn't ready to admit that yet.

"Then it's a good thing I'm here to be confident for you, isn't it?" he asked, moving to where she sat and sitting down next to her. He wrapped an arm around her and carefully pulled her into his arms.

She leaned into his embrace, trying to keep the tears from falling. "I hate that you got trapped, but I'm glad that you came for me."

"When I found out you were here... that you'd been left behind... there was no way I wasn't going to come for you."

"How much damage did you do to my team when they tried to stop you?"

"Very little, actually," he said. "I just sort of shoved my way through them and made a run for it."

She laughed softly. "Kept them from bleeding that way."

"If they'd tried to restrain me much harder, they'd have bled."

She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. "Your uncle is going to throw a fit when he finds out that you got trapped here with me." Not as big of a fit as Dani would throw on Burton for daring to come to the ARC or say anything, but close.

"I'm hoping your family will decide to just not tell him until after they get us back."

"If he shows up in Dani's space..."

"If he shows up in her space, then we'll be planning a funeral -- and it won't be hers." Kahlil sighed. "I'd hope he doesn't show up, but we all know he probably will."

"And he'll upset Mom," she said quietly.

"I don't want that."

"It's not something you can stop him from doing, love. I wish it was."

"I know." He sighed. "I just hate how my family can't do anything but upset her. It's why I try avoiding her as much as I can, when I'm around."

"It's... it's not your family, love," Niki said quietly. "It's your uncle. He ..." She looked down, warring with herself over telling him what her family didn't realize she and her sister knew.

"He did something bad to her, didn't he?" Kahlil asked gently.

Niki nodded slowly, wincing from the pain. "Mom and the Dads don't think that Dani and I know about what happened, but we do."

"What... what did he do?" Kahlil asked, hugging Niki a little closer as though he could protect her from the horribleness of whatever had happened to Abby.

"It wasn't enough that he was taking Connor away from mom and dad," she whispered, leaning into his chest. "He tried to kill mom. There was a poisonous gas that was fed into the vents of her lab every few days. It couldn't be sensed at all and it was only affecting Mom. It didn't seem to have any affect on the plants she was working on in her lab -- and it didn't affect Rex, either. But Mom, she kept getting more and more sick. She collapsed in her lab and it was a few hours before Aunt Jess came in and saw Mom's body on the floor through her security feeds."

"Shit." Kahlil didn't know what else to say; really, did anything else need to be said? "No wonder she flipped out the first time she saw us together."

"Uncle Matt was the one who found what Burton was releasing into Mom's air vents. He almost killed your uncle. She was sick for quite awhile before she collapsed so it must have been happening for awhile. Later Uncle Matt and Aunt Jess told the Dads that if Mom was dead and out of the equation, then there was no chance of anyone being able to change Connor's mind about working for him on his questionable projects."

"I..." Kahlil hadn't expected it to be that bad, but he shouldn't have been surprised. "God, Nik. No wonder she was so jumpy for so many years after." He'd known about that much but had never known why.

"That's the reason he's only the figurehead for Prospero and not allowed to make any real decisions without the backing of the board. They couldn't legally prove that it was him because legally parts of the ARC don't exist." Niki said quietly. "We kids aren't supposed to know, but Dani and I overheard the Dads talking about it one night. They thought they were going to lose her and yeah, she was really jumpy for many years. She slowly got better, but sometimes she is reminded about that and one of the Dads is there to talk her down from the panic."

Kahlil could only shake his head. "That makes a lot of things make so much more sense, now that I think about it." He sighed. "Guess there aren't a whole lot of family dinners for us to look forward to in the future, hm?" He tried for a smile and didn't quite make it.

"They'll accept you because I love you -- and especially after this."

"Do you really think your mother will be able to accept me?" There was an undercurrent of something in his voice that might've been fear.

"You ran into a dangerous situation to go after her daughter, love. She'll accept you."

"That'll definitely win me points with her, but it's a big step from being grateful to actual acceptance."

"You endangered yourself to protect her baby."

"Who happens to be the woman I love more than anything."

"And I love you just as much," she said with a soft smile.

"Means the world to me, love," he said, pressing a kiss to the side of her head. "The absolute world."

She smiled again, leaning into him.

"And whether we get home or not -- though obviously I'd much prefer to get home -- I'm right where I want to be," he said. "Because I'm with you."

"I love you."

"I love you, too," he murmured, kissing the side of her head again. "I always will."

She smiled slightly, closing her eyes as she relaxed against him. "I know you will."

Kahlil let his head rest against the wall of the cave, his eyes closing as well. God, he was tired.

"Sleep, sweetheart. I'll keep a watch out."

"I'm supposed to be protecting you." Might've sounded more convincing if he weren't already drowsy and half asleep.

"You can protect me better when you get some rest."

"Hate when you're right," he mumbled.

"You love it when I'm right," she said softly.

"Brat." He laughed tiredly. "Wake me up soon, 'kay?"

"I will, love. Just rest now."

"Okay." And with that, he was out like a light; he'd been more tired than he'd let on.

Niki sighed softly, leaning her head against him as he slept and keeping her eyes on the mouth of the cave. She might have been injured, but there was no way she would let anything happen to Kahlil on her watch.



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