Coming Full Circle {6/8}

[shadowcat]

Title: Coming Full Circle {6/8}
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.







Dani was exhausted.

Well, actually, she was so far past exhausted that she'd come around to being awake again. Second wind, forget it. She was on her third or fourth wind by now. There was no way she was going to sleep until her sister was safely home again.

A plan that might've succeeded if she didn't have a very, very persistent boyfriend/best friend.

"Dani, please," Henry said for what must have been the third time in as many hours. "You have to get some rest. You didn't sleep last night and you're half a step away from falling asleep where you sit."

"Am not," Dani said stubbornly.

Henry just gave her a Look. "Yes, you are," he said gently. "I understand it, Dani. I do. Niki's my cousin. She's family. I want her back just as badly as you do. But we can't figure out a way to get her back if you're so exhausted you can't think straight." He reached out to tuck a lock of her hair back behind one ear. "Do you want to run the risk of making a mistake?"

"Of course not," Dani said. "But Henry, I can't sleep until we get her back. Every minute I'm not working on it is one more minute that something could happen to her there. One more minute where I might lose her. And I can't lose her. She's my big sister and my best friend."

Henry sighed. He hated seeing Dani so torn up by this, but even more than that he hated not knowing what to do to help her or even if there was anything he could do to help her. He was helpless, and helpless was not an emotion the Quinn men did well -- or at all, really.

"Then tell me what I can do," he said, running a hand over her hair. "I'm here, put me to use."

"Get me another cup of coffee?" Dani smiled tiredly. "I swear to God, I'm going to turn into a cup of coffee before this is all said and done with."

"Don't do that," Henry said with a faint laugh he didn't really feel. "Coffee doesn't have arms. It can't work the computers."

Dani laughed softly, which was pretty much what Henry had been aiming for.

"But yeah, I can make a coffee run," Henry said. "Want me to grab you something to eat, too?"

"It's tempting, but I'm so tired I'd probably just spill it on one of the computers and if I do that, Dad will kill me. I'm pushing it just having the coffee around."

"We all know how Uncle Connor is about the computers," Henry agreed. "Between him and Aunt Jess... yeah." He ran his hand over Dani's hair affectionately before stepping back. "I'll go do that coffee run, then. I've got my mobile; text if you think of anything else you want or need."

Dani nodded and turned her attention back to the computer in front of her, barely even noticing when

Henry walked away. She was too busy trying to keep her focus long enough to get something productive done. Damn it, why did this have to be so hard?

She should sleep, she knew she should. Her concentration was shot and she was probably missing things that she should easily be picking up on. But like she'd said, how could she possibly sleep when her sister was out there trapped in the past? Getting Niki back -- and Kahlil, too -- was infinitely more important than sleep.

She sighed, raked her fingers through her hair, and tilted her head as she considered a reading on the screen. If she tweaked the numbers, she might be able to...

A flash of inspiration hit; her fingers flew over the keys as she opened a program and ran a simulation. Yes, that might just work. She let out a triumphant cry and ran the simulation again just to make sure. This was too important to not be sure about.

She was working furiously when Henry returned ten minutes later. "Good news?" he asked, taking in the way she was focused on the screen in front of her.

"Maybe," Dani said distractedly, frowning slightly. "I think I've found a way to get them back."

Henry pressed the cup of coffee into Dani's hands. "Tell me."

"If I tweak these numbers and change the strength of this signal here," she said, pointing to the monitor, "then I might just be able to get the anomaly open and stable long enough to send a team through to retrieve them."

"Brilliant," Henry declared, pressing a kiss to the top of Dani's head. "That's my brilliant girl."

Dani grinned at him. "Always, love. Always."



Niki was dreaming.

She was no longer in pain and she didn't feel cold, either. In fact, she didn't feel anything at the moment. She was sure that she should be concerned about that, but right now she was trying to remember who and where she was.

She was standing on a cliff overlooking a valley. In the valley below there was a gathering of people. Some of them she knew personally, some of them she didn't know at all. There were a few people that she recognized as working at the ARC over the years in some capacity or another.

"It never gets easier, you know," a voice said from beside her. "Not for them and not for those of us that watch them."

She turned to look at her side and was surprised to find someone standing next to her. She didn't know him personally, but she certainly knew him from pictures and stories her parents told sometimes.

"What doesn't get easier?"

"Dealing with death," Stephen Hart said quietly.

"Whose death," she asked reluctantly, sure she wouldn't like the answer he gave her.

"Our death," he responded.

She had been right. She didn't like his answer. "I'm dead?"

Stephen nodded. "You and your friend both."

"Kahlil! What happened to Kahlil?! He was fine!"

Stephen nodded his head to the two small trees that were growing together where the people had gathered. The people parted and she could see that they were in a graveyard. She recognized the graveyard and stared as Stephen continued speaking. "After he lost you, he just couldn't do it any longer."

"Couldn't do what?"

Stephen turned back to look at her. "God, you look so much like your mother."

"Focus! What happened to Kahlil?"

Stephen sighed. "You died out here. You were bleeding internally and neither you or Kahlil realized the extent of your injuries. You fought, god did you fight, but finally your body just shut down on you. Two weeks without medical treatment was just too much for your body. It just wasn't as strong as your will."

Niki swallowed and then swallowed again. "Kahlil?"

"Your sister managed to get the anomaly back open, but by the time the rescue team got to your location, you were gone and Kahlil wouldn't let go of your body." He looked at her. "Becker and Quinn had to shoot him full of tranquilizers in order to get him to let go and get you both to the hospital."

Niki frowned. "Oh Kahlil."

"He woke up in the hospital, but you didn't. Anderson was the one that gave him the news because the rest of your family was just too broken up to function very well for awhile."

Niki felt tears sliding down her cheeks. "Kahlil must have been devastated."

"He went crazy and was killed in a shoot-out." It was said in a gentle tone of voice.

"A shoot-out?"

Stephen nodded. "He went after the security team leader that had led your team into an unstable anomaly to begin with. He and the other man got into a fire fight and both were killed."

Niki couldn't breathe for a moment as pain gripped her heart over what Kahlil had gone through. "Oh god, love. My poor love." She managed to get her breathing under control and then looked at Stephen. "Why are you here?"

"I was the one who has been dead the longest of our dysfunctional family. We decided that I would be the one who would help you."

"Help me? I'm dead, apparently. How can you possibly help me with that?"

Stephen looked at her for a long moment. "Yes, so like your mother. Beautiful, brave and stubborn as hell."

"That doesn't answer my questions, Stephen."

Stephen shook his head. "I know. It's just that I never expected to be having to do something like this for one of Abby's children."

"Do what?"

"Get you back to the crossroads so you can choose your way."

Niki just looked at him in confusion.

"You've been stuck here in this place for several years because you got lost."

"Years? But I was just in the cave talking to Kahlil!"

"I told you that you got lost. It happens sometimes when people die and don't realize that they're dead. They get trapped. Time neither moves forward or back and in fact, they don't realize that time has passed at all." At the look of pain on Niki's face, he gave her a faint smile. "Yeah. You've been dead several years, six, to be accurate and Kahlil has been dead for five."

"This... this isn't right. Kahlil shouldn't be dead -- not because of me. I need to fix this, help him in some way."

"His death wasn't your fault, Nicole. There was nothing that you could have done."

"I could have fought harder and not died," Niki snapped. "If I hadn't died, then he wouldn't have, either."

Stephen gave her a faint smile. "That's what I thought you would say. In fact, that's what all of us thought you would say."

"All of you?"

Stephen nodded. "Me, Nick and Sarah. We knew that you would be more focused on saving Kahlil than in moving on to find your own peace."

"I can't exactly find peace when my family is broken and the love of my life is dead because of me, now can I?!"

"That's why I'm able to show you back to the crossroads and send you on the right path to go back home." At her incredulous look, he gave her a sad smile. "I would do whatever I could to spare Abby the pain she's going through right now. I can only give this gift once and there is no one I would rather share it with than one of Abby's children."

"Why?" Niki asked quietly. "Why would you do this for me and not for Kahlil? What makes me so special? He died because of me and he's the one that you should send back."

"I loved your mother, Nichole, and the fact of the matter is that I didn't tell her. I died and I watched her go through so much hell and finally find her happiness again. Losing you has shattered something inside her and Becker and Connor are worried about her state of mind."

"Her state of mind?" She certainly didn't like the sound of that.

"I can't tell you anymore," he said gently. "Just trust me. Take my hand and trust me."

Niki looked at him for a long moment and then placed her hand in his...

"You're not allowed to get into a shoot-out and die on me, Kahlil," Niki murmured from somwhere in the depths of her unconsciousness and then went quiet again.



Kahlil didn't know what to do, felt helpless and didn't like it one bit. Niki was unconscious and there was nothing he could do for her. Nothing he could do except wait and worry and pray to a God he didn't entirely believe in that everything was going to work out.

Well, that and obsessively check their weapons over and over again. The guns had been laid out on the floor of the cave, all the better for Kahlil to check and double check and make sure each one was in proper working order. It was ridiculous, he knew, and it wasn't doing either of them a bit of good but at the same time, it was keeping him from sliding even further into shock. And the shock probably explained the obsessive checking and re-checking, now that he thought about it.

At the moment, he was standing and pacing restlessly, his injured arm cradled against his side. The bite had been worse than he'd thought, worse than he'd let on to Niki. He didn't think it'd gotten down to the muscle, but he was feeling the pain so badly that it was hard to tell. Either way, it was more pain than he wanted to be feeling. His pain meant he couldn't focus, couldn't focus on Niki and taking care of her and making sure she was going to be okay.

Kahlil shifted his arm, winced, and looked back to where Niki was now stretched out on the cave floor. She was so pale, so damn pale, pale and bloody and God, he hated seeing her like that. He hated not being able to do anything for her beyond walk and pace and stand guard as best he was able.

As he paced, he wondered if his uncle had heard about this yet, if he'd descended on the ARC in a self-righteous fury. Kahlil hoped not; dealing with Burton was the last thing that Niki's family needed, given everything he'd done to them.

Kahlil stopped pacing as a wave of dizziness hit him. Moving slowly, he made his way back to Niki's side and sat down carefully. He reached out to brush a strand of hair back from Niki's face. "It's going to be okay," he promised. "It's going to be okay. Dani's going to figure out how to get us home and we'll get you medical attention and you'll be perfectly fine."

His voice cracked slightly. "Because you have to survive, Nik. You have to. I can't do life without you. You're too goddamn important to me. I love you, Nik. I need you."

Kahlil wasn't entirely sure he'd ever done a good job of showing Niki just how important she was to him, just how much she mattered to him. Their relationship was still too new even after several months for him to be entirely certain. But he did know that one thing was for sure -- he was head over heels in love with her, had been since the moment he'd first met her, and the idea of life without her terrified him to no end. She was the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, he knew that already. The subject had come up between them a little bit ago and Niki hadn't seemed scared of the prospect. Of course, she'd also been in shock and sliding downhill fast. But he liked to think that at the very least, she didn't mind the idea.

it was something they'd have to discuss later, when they were home and had gotten patched up and were able to curl up in bed together and hide away from the world for a few days. Or weeks. Just then, the idea of hiding for a few weeks was ridiculously appealing. And he knew Niki would feel the same way.

"You're not allowed to get into a shoot-out and die on me, Kahlil."

He looked down at her in surprise, frowning. A shoot-out? He decided he officially didn't want to know where that had come from.

Niki didn't say anything else, but even in her unconscious state, she reached out for his warmth.

Kahlil reached out to take her hand in his. "I'm here, love," he whispered. "I'm here."

For a moment, it looked like she was going to open her eyes, but she just sighed and pressed his hand weakly.

Kahlil swore softly and squeezed her hand in return. "Come back to me, love. Please, come back to me. I need you."

Niki whispered something and moved her hand in his.

He tilted his head and leaned closer, trying to catch what she was saying.

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Nik," he said. "I love you so much."

She opened her eyes for a moment, but then sighed as she closed them again.

She'd opened them, though, and that gave Kahlil hope. He squeezed her hand again and sighed.

She swallowed and pulled his hand over to her cheek so that she could rest her face against him.

Kahlil shifted his position and sat closer to her, brushing his thumb against her cheek. "It's going to be okay," he promised.

"You... you need water." Her words were slurred, but at lease she had managed to say something.

"I'm not leaving you right now," he said. "Not while you're in this condition."

"You have to," Niki insisted.

"I'm not going to risk leaving you in this condition, Niki," he said. "I'm just not. Leaving you when you were injured was what got you even more hurt in the first place."

"Kahlil, we need water or we're going to die."

He knew she was right, but that didn't mean he liked this situation any better. "Promise me you'll be safe. Promise me."

"Put the gun on my stomach and my hand over it. Anything that comes in and doesn't identify itself will be shot."

Kahlil nodded slightly and reached for one of the guns, positioning it. "I'll try to be back as soon as I can."

"Be careful," she whispered.

"I will," he said with a nod. "I promise."

She managed to give him a faint smile.

Kahlil stood there a moment, just watching her, before gathering the canteens and leaving. He could only pray he wouldn't be gone too long.

When she heard him leave, Niki sighed and let the tears she had been hiding from him slip down her cheeks. She was in serious and pain and she was scared. She was scared for him more than for her, though. This was her job and the risk she took in her job. Kahlil was only here because he loved her.




Five || Seven