By The Time You Read This (7/8)

[enochiansigils]

Title: By The Time You Read This
Author: enochiansigils and not_from_stars
Artist: weaselett
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing/Characters: Hilary Becker/Abby Maitland/Stephen Hart, James Lester, Jenny Lewis, Danny Quinn,
Rating/Category: PG-13
Summary: Abby had thought that after they came back from the anomaly, that the three of them could make a go of a relationship together. However, when Stephen and Becker fall into a pattern of doing nothing but fighting, it leads her to believe that they don't even care about her any longer. She leaves them a letter to say goodbye and disappears. Now, Stephen and Becker have to find a way to heal their old hurts between them in order to find Abby and convince her that they want to make a life together.
Warnings: This is a sequel to our casestory fic, From Where We're Standing, but can also be a stand alone story.
Words: 33,849
Notes: Written for au_bigbang 2011. Thank you very much to weaselett for the wonderful art that she made for us! We've loved writing this story and have very much enjoyed taking part in the challenge this year.








While Stephen was meeting their daughter, the surgeon led Becker into the room where Abby was. She was pale and looked so fragile as she lay there. There were IVs in her arm and an oxygen mask over her nose. The fact that it was guaranteeing she could breathe might have been a little frightening.

The surgeon directed Becker to a chair next to head of the bed. He gave Becker a small smile. "The red button is the emergency call button. If anything goes wrong, you press that and we'll be here." He nodded and then left to give Becker some privacy.

Becker sat and looked at Abby. It was terrifying how small and delicate she looked, and not in any of the ways he liked. "You've got to wake up, love," he said. "Because I've got so much to tell you. You'd be so proud of Stephen and me, I promise."

The only response to that was the sounds of the machines that were monitoring the woman on the bed.

He reached out to take her hand in his. "We need you, Abby. God, we need you. It's just not right around the flat without you. Though I suppose we'll need a bigger place now, with the three of us and the baby."

A nurse came in to put something into the IV and she gave Becker a sympathetic look. "Are you the husband?"

Becker gave a quick shake of his head. "Just the boyfriend."

The nurse looked like she wanted to say something more. Finally she looked between Abby and Becker, and the way that he was holding her hand. "Did the doctor tell you what happened?"

"Something about an infection," Becker said. "How if I'd found her an hour later, she probably would've been dead."

The nurse muttered something about men not giving the full details. "Her appendix ruptured, sweetie. It probably started to let go some time last night."

"That explains why she seemed so sick and miserable when she called me," he said. "Because it wasn't just early labor."

"No, it wasn't. Her appendix ruptured and she was probably in severe pain and vomiting. That with the poisons from the appendix caused the early labor to start." She gave him a small smile. "She probably never even realized that something was wrong until then."

"And as soon as she realized something was wrong, she called me." He was still clinging to that, would be clinging to it until Abby was awake and talking to him again.

"That's good. It probably saved her life when she called you."

"Her and the baby both." It was still surreal to think that he was a father now.

"Sir, there is something you should know..."

He looked at the nurse. "What's that?"

"Miss Maitland may not be able to have any more children. We don't know for sure until she wakes up, but there is that possibility."

"She's alive," Becker said after a moment to process that. "That's the important part."

"It's good that you feel that way. Some boyfriends would be out of here faster than anything."

"I'd like to have more kids, but if we can't..." He shrugged. "Then we can't. I don't care and Stephen won't, either."

"You love her a great deal."

"I do," he said with a nod. "We both do."

"Then the lot of you will be fine."

"I certainly hope so." Becker looked back to Abby. "She's an amazing woman."

The nurse finished checking all of Abby's connections and then patted Becker's arm."I'll leave you alone with your girl."

"I just hope she still wants to be my girl," he said, quirking a sad smile.

"She called you when she was scared and in pain," the nurse said firmly before leaving the room.

Becker thought about that as he sat there, holding Abby's hand. The nurse did have a point. Abby could have called anybody, but she'd called him. She'd wanted him to help her. And she'd wanted him and Stephen both there.

Yes, Abby still wanted to be his girl. Or at the very least, still cared deeply for him.

It was about three hours later when Abby suddenly gasped and all of the monitors started beeping. She opened her eyes and then closed them again when she didn't recognize where she was.

"Becker?!" She whimpered. "Stephen?"

Becker hadn't left the room in the three hours that had passed. "I'm right here," he said, squeezing her hand. "I think Stephen's still having daddy-daughter bonding time with Leslee, because I haven't seen him since he went to go visit her."

She turned her head to him and opened her eyes again. "The baby? She's all right?"

"She's fine," Becker assured her. "Nothing wrong besides the stuff that comes along with being pretty much two months early."

"What happened?" She asked. "I don't remember much." With her free hand she tried to remove the oxygen mask from her face completely. "Where are we?"

"Hey, careful," he said, leaning over to tug the mask aside for her but still have it near in case she needed it. "Your appendix burst. You had an infection. It caused you to go into labor, and they had to deliver the baby. We're in the hospital."

"I remember a lot of pain and being sick," she whispered. "I thought it was just the flu or something, but then it starting getting worse. When I realized I was in labor, I was so scared for her."

"You called me," he said, still holding her hand. "You were hurt and in pain and you called me." He couldn't help still sounding a little stunned at that.

"I was in trouble," she said with a sheepish look. "Even with everything that has happened, my mind knew that you would get to me when I couldn't help myself."

"We owe your landlord a new front door for your flat, by the way," Becker said with a laugh. "Had to break it down to get to you."

"I'm sure Lester will be sure to tell you how much it costs," she said, giving him a look full of sadness. She wasn't sure how he or Stephen felt about her now -- especially after so many months and not telling them about Leslee.

"I'll talk to him about it later." He looked down at their hands for a moment, only then realizing that he was holding hers with the hand that had his ring on it. Well, crap.

She misinterpreted the reason he was looking down and not at her. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you."

"I wish you had, yeah, but I understand why you didn't. It wasn't a good environment for a baby. But we wouldn't have fought around you or Leslee. We'd have died before we let that happen."

"I didn't want you to fight at all, Hilary," Abby said softly, her voice sad. "But it wasn't completely your fault. Yours or Stephen's. I loved you both so much that I just wanted the three of us to be together and be happy. You guys only said yes so that you could have me, and that wasn't a fair situation for me to expect of either of you."

"That was never the entire reason, for either of us," he said. "I mean, at first we said yes so we could be with you because having to be with each other was a completely acceptable price to pay... and then it stopped being a price to pay and started being us rediscovering the stuff we'd loved about each other. But it took a long time for the fighting to go away, because we didn't know how to handle any of it and we were still afraid of losing you."

"It felt like you didn't love me any longer," she admitted. "Watching the two of you fight was tearing me apart and it began to feel like I was taking second place to the animosity between you. It felt less like I was important and more like I was the weapon you were both wielding on each other."

"I never meant to make you feel like that," he said quietly. "I just... it scared me to be sharing you with the man who'd left me in the middle of the night and never looked back."

"I don't love him more than you, Hilary," she said gently, trying to get him to understand. "And I don't love you more than him. I would never choose one of you over the other. I know he hurt you badly, but he's a different man now than he was back then." She squeezed his hand. "If I didn't believe that, do you think I would have let him anywhere near you?"

"You'd have kicked his arse and told him to take a hike." Becker smiled slightly. "I said he's Leslee's father, by the way. So it's on record, whether he is or not."

"You're both her fathers," Abby said firmly.

"I know that. I'm just saying, I told them he was the biological father. So he's on the birth certificate." Becker smiled slightly. "He'd already done something to show me how much I mean to him, I figured it was time I did something to show him how much he means to me."

"I'm glad you worked everything out between you and are happy," she whispered. "It was worth whatever I had to go through as long as you're happy now."

"We're not as happy as we could be, though. Because something's missing."

"He's right on that, Abby," Stephen said quietly. He had been watching and listening to the exchange from outside the door. He put his hand on Becker's shoulder and squeezed it gently. "You're missing in that equation."

Becker brought his free hand up to cover Stephen's, never taking his gaze away from Abby.

"I didn't think that you wanted me any longer," she said, looking from one to the other. "I thought if I wasn't in the way, you two would find your way back to each other."

"We did. But the failure in your logic is thinking that we only want to be with each other. We don't. Yes, the past four months have had some great moments for him and me, but we want to be able to share all our moments with you."

"I didn't want to leave. It tore my heart out to do so, but I didn't feel like I had any choice. It hurt so much to watch you guys fight and hurt. When you're hurting each other, there's nothing I can do to make it right. Then when I found out about Leslee..." She swallowed. "I couldn't put her through what I went through growing up. I couldn't. So I left. I tried handing in my resignation to Lester, but he said we would consider it a leave of absence."

"We're sorry," Becker said, his voice breaking. "We're sorry. Please, Abby. Please come home."

Her eyes widened as she looked at them both in silence for a long moment.

"You mean, you still want me?"

"Of course we still want you," Becker said, his voice shaking. "We never stopped."

"Abby, I'm sorry that I made you feel that you weren't wanted or important. You are. You're one of the most important people in my life." Stephen looked at her, trying to keep his own voice steady. "We need you. We're not whole or happy without you."

"We want to be what you wanted us to be," Becker said, tears in his eyes now. He didn't bother to wipe them away. "We want it to be the three of us together. We want to be a family."

And part of him wondered if this was when they should propose. He'd been carrying the ring around ever since they'd gotten it.

"A family," she whispered, looking at them. "You're not angry at me about keeping Leslee a secret from you both?"

"Sad that it happened, yes," Becker said. "Angry at you for it, no."

"We're not letting you go, Abby," Stephen explained, stepping forward. "And no, it's not because of Leslee. We wanted you to come home even before we knew about her, and having her now just adds to our family. We're yours, love. We'll always be yours. Just give us another chance to show you how much we love you and how much you mean to us. We won't hurt you again."

Becker turned his head slightly to catch Stephen's eye. "Should we?" he asked softly, tapping Stephen's ring with a finger.

Stephen nodded. "We'll never get a better chance than this and it's not like she can run away from us right now."

Abby frowned, looking back and forth between them.

"What are the two of you talking about?"

Becker pulled his hand from Abby's before reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out the ring box. "We know we've fouled things up pretty fiercely, but we also know that you still love us despite that. And we know that we've spent the past four months absolutely miserable without you. We don't ever want you to feel like we don't want you, that we don't love you, that we don't treasure you."

He smiled shyly as he opened the box, displaying a ring that looked like a much more feminine version of the rings that he and Stephen wore. "We want you to be ours forever."

Abby brought her other hand to her mouth and her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the ring for a long time. She finally lifted her eyes from the ring to look at the two men at her bedside.

"You bought me a ring..."

"We did," Becker said with a nod.

"Becker wanted it to just be for you," Stephen said with a faint smile, his hand still on Becker's shoulder. "But I was pretty determined to stake my claim on him, too."

Abby's lips trembled as she looked at the men. They were more relaxed than she had seen them be in a long time. They were easy and affectionate with each other and it made her heart fill with love for them all over again. When she noticed that they were both wearing rings that matched the one they were now offering to her, she felt the tears sliding down her cheeks.

"All three of us? Forever?"

"Yes and yes," Becker said. "I'm not gonna lie, we still have our bad days. But we've hit the whole 'apologizing with really great sex and everything really is all right' stage." He couldn't help smirking up at Stephen at that. "I think he provokes me sometimes. Just a little."

That made Abby laugh softly, and she only winced a little bit at the aches in her body that were annoyed by that. "If you growl and shove him around after he does that, I can understand completely why he might provoke you."

"Oh, Jesus, that growl," Stephen said. "He never did that the first time we were together."

Abby looked pleased with herself. "He started doing it after he was upset with me about something and I pounced on him because of how he sounded when he was growling."

"On behalf of my sex life the past couple months, can I just thank you for that?"

Abby bit her lip, not exactly sure how she was supposed to respond to that. She finally gave a small smile to both of them. "You're welcome?"

Becker, for his part, was just sitting there with the ring box and looking at the two of them like they'd lost their minds.

"No more wanting me to choose," Abby whispered. "No more thinking that I want one of you over the other?"

"No more," Stephen said solemnly. "No more using you to hurt each other."

Abby looked at both of them for several long moments and then she nodded.

"Yes."

Becker took the ring and placed it on Abby's hand. "Beautiful," he said softly. "Just beautiful."

Tears were slipping down Abby's face. "It really is. I don't think I've ever seen a ring this beautiful."

"You can thank Jenny," Becker said. "She's the one who noticed it when we were trying to find a ring that worked for you."

"You were able to get Jenny to help you?" They really had wanted to get her back badly if they swallowed their pride and asked Jenny.

"Yeah." Becker nodded. "She didn't make it easy on us, though."

"She made it easier on him," Stephen said. "I had to pretty much flat out beg."

"Sarah might have been easier on you," she murmured. "Jenny... Jenny is really the more protective of me."

"That's part of why we chose her," Stephen said. "We figured that if we could get her to help us, then maybe it'd speak better of us."

"My guys are definitely smart," Abby said with a small smile.

"Of course we are," Stephen said, his hand drifting from Becker's shoulder to gently comb through the man's hair. It was one of the things he'd never forgotten, the way Becker had a thing for his hair being messed with.

She kept looking from the guys to the ring that was now on her finger.

"Did we make a good choice?" Becker asked. "Jenny said this was something you would like."

She nodded. "It's perfect," she whispered. "Nothing flashy and I can wear it to work." She looked at them. "You knew I wouldn't need large flashy stones."

"That's what the wedding ring's for," Becker joked. "If we ever find a way to actually marry you, that is."

Abby blushed and then smiled. "I don't need that. This is more than enough. This tells me what I need to know."

"And what's that?" Stephen asked. They all knew it, but he and Becker needed to hear her say it.

"That you love me. That I'm wanted. That I belong." She swallowed. "That I'm yours -- both of yours. And that you're both mine."

"We're yours and each other's," Stephen said. "It's the three of us. There's no two and one in any combination, there's just three."

"Oh thank God," Abby whispered.

"I love you, Abby," Stephen said. "And I love Becker just as much. I know I didn't go about any of this in the best way possible, and I hope you both can forgive that. I just... knew what I wanted and didn't think I'd get any other chance to let you know, Abby."

Abby reached a hand towards him. "But you know that you love us both... and that I love you and Becker loves you?"

"I do," Stephen said, reaching out to take her hand. "I've known Becker loves me for months now."

"I'm really glad that you two got things figured out between you."

"It didn't take that long, either," Becker said, looking at Stephen for a moment and smiling.

Abby gave them both an expectant look.

"When we read the letter you left, we were terrified," Becker said. "We realized what we'd lost. We kind of... clung to each other for the first few days. Like we were afraid of losing each other, too."

"I wondered how long it would take you to talk without me there in the middle."

"Pretty much as soon as we'd both read the letter," Becker admitted. "But you weren't in the middle, Abby."

"I felt like I was in the way, Hilary."

"I know you did, but... you weren't."

"It helps a lot to know that," she said, nodding. "It really does."

"It was just so hard for me to trust him again, because I remembered the way he'd hurt me. And I didn't want him to have the chance to do that to you. But I wasn't strong enough to keep him away, so... I think there was a good bit of self-loathing in there for a while."

"I'm sorry that I put both of you guys in that situation." Abby's own voice was full of self-loathing. "I just knew that you both loved me and I loved you. I knew there was love between the two of you, too. I thought that if we were together, it would make everything better for the two of you."

"Oh, Abby my girl..." Becker said softly. "You were trying to help us. How could we fault you for that? The execution of it might not have been ideal, but you were just trying to help."

"He's right, Abs," Stephen agreed. "We're not upset with you for anything. We're just sad and ashamed we hurt you so much that you didn't see any other option but to leave us."

Becker nodded in agreement.

"I want to come home."

Becker's eyes lit up at that. "Oh, thank you. Just... thank you."

Abby looked confused. "For what?"

"For wanting to come home."

"It should be me saying thank you that you want me to come home." Abby's voice was shy as she played with the ring.

"Why wouldn't we want you to come home? We love you."

"I hurt you, both of you. Badly."

"You didn't do it with the intention of hurting us," Becker said. "Yes, you hurt us, but you didn't mean to."

Abby sniffled. "I hated doing it. I hated doing it and I had to stop myself from coming back so many times."

"Ssh, love, it's okay," Stephen soothed. "It all worked out for us."

"So, we can come home?" Yes, boys. She needed to hear it again.

Well, that was fortunate, because they needed to say it again.

"Yes," Becker said, squeezing Abby's hand gently. "You can come home. You and our daughter both."

"Come home, please, love," Stephen said. Then he gave her a faint smile. "And we're going to take a proper photo with you between us where you belong."

"Because sometimes it's all right for you to be in front of us," Becker said. "But right now is one of the times we need you between us, sheltered and safe."

Abby smiled and there were a different kind of tears in her eyes. "I get a little protective of you guys sometimes. But sometimes, it's nice to feel like you're the one protected."

"We'll always protect you," Becker said. "But we'll... we'll work on letting you protect us sometimes."

"I think that's a compromise that we can live with."

"Good." Becker smiled before hesitating. He wanted to be the one to tell Abby and Stephen what the nurse had said, about her possibly not being able to have more children, but he didn't know if this was the right time.

He couldn't hide anything from Abby. "What's wrong?"

"They told me something about your condition... how because of everything, they weren't sure if..." He trailed off, swallowed, continued. "They weren't sure if you would be able to have more children or not. The nurse said they wouldn't know until after you woke up."

"Oh." She swallowed hard, looking down at her lap and picking at the blanket. "So, there's a chance that all we'll ever be able to have is Leslee..."

"I'm fine with it," Becker said. "You two are healthy and that's what matters."

"I'm fine with it, too," was Stephen's response. "I mean, yes. I won't lie. I'd like to have more children. I'd like us to have the chance of a child that's biologically Hilary's, because Leslee just so has my eyes. But if she's all we have, then she's all we have."

"I have blue eyes, too," and there was a hint of a warning in Abby's voice. "I'd like to have more children some day. But if Leslee is all I can have, I can be all right with that."

"They're ridiculously vibrant," he explained. "That's why I think she's mine. And I'd like him to be biological father to one of our kids because I just think it'd be a nice balance, is all." He grinned. "Besides, then I'd have two kids to spoil utterly rotten."

"You're sure that you both... if I can't..." Abby was feeling suddenly vulnerable and scared again. Neither were feelings she liked.

"We're positive," Becker assured her.

She nodded, a lot of tension leaving her as she let out a breath. "All right, then."

"She's beautiful, by the way," Stephen said. "Absolutely beautiful."

"She has beautiful fathers."

"Her mother's more beautiful, though." Becker grinned. "Wonder when they'll let me see Leslee."

"You could probably ask the doctor now?" Abby suggested. "I don't know if they'll bring her up here because of her being so early and susceptible to viruses."

"I'm not the father -- to them, so stop making the snarly face -- so I'm not sure they would."

Abby snarled anyway as she rang for the nurse. When a nurse hurried in, Abby looked at her. "Captain Becker would like to see our daughter. Would you arrange for it, please?"

The nurse was smiling at Abby. "Of course. It's good to see you awake. Your young friends were wearing holes in my floor."

"We probably would've if we'd been pacing much longer," Becker admitted with a sheepish smile.

Abby smiled at the nurse. "They tend to worry too much when it comes to me."

"You're our girl," Stephen said. "We're supposed to worry. It's in the job description."

The nurses grinned. "Honey, there are very few girls who get worried over like they're supposed to. You just lay back and let these boys fuss."

"I'm fussing, this one's going to go see his daughter," Stephen said, giving Becker a gentle nudge.

The nurse grinned. "Come with me, Captain, and I'll take you to see your daughter."

Becker couldn't help looking a little stunned as he followed the nurse.

When they were gone, Abby looked at Stephen. "You guys are really all right together?"

"We are," Stephen said with a nod.

She gave him a level look. "How much did you hate me for walking out on you first? I know how volatile you can be, love."

"I didn't hate you," Stephen said quietly. "I just... really understood how Becker felt when I left him."

"Does he know you split because of Helen?"

"Yeah," Stephen said with a nod. "I finally told him."

"That's good. He needed to know." She eyed him. "Do you understand why I left?"

"Yeah." Stephen looked down at his hands. "I do."

"I hated leaving, Stephen, and I broke a promise I made to Hilary in doing so -- one that I don't know if he'll ever be able to forgive me for," she said quietly. "But the two of you love each other so much and you were hurting. I thought that maybe if I wasn't in the way the two of you could get things worked out and be happy again."

"And we are happy," Stephen said. "But we were never as happy as we could have been, because every milestone we hit was darkened a little by your not being there to see it."

"As much as I love you guys so much, and as much as kills me to be away from you... I don't want to be in the way of what the two of you have or can have."

"Don't say that to Becker. He's going to think it means you don't want to come home."

She looked miserable. "That's not what I feel at all. Each day I've been away from you both it's felt like I couldn't breathe."

He reached out to take her hand. "So what does it mean, then?" he asked gently.

"I want you both. I love you both and I want to come home. But if the two of you would rather I didn't..." She swallowed painfully.

"Abby, sweetheart, we already said we want you and Leslee to come home."

"I know you did, but I'm scared, too," she admitted quietly. "I don't like saying that I'm afraid of anything, you know that, but this time, I'm really scared."

He squeezed her hand gently. "We're scared, too."

She blinked, then squeezed back. "You are?"

"Of course we are."

"You have to promise me something, Stephen. If you ever decide... that you're not happy, you have to tell me."

"That won't happen. I won't be unhappy."

"And if anything happens to me, you'll take care of Becker as well as Leslee."

"Now that I can safely promise." He looked at her seriously. "If anything ever happens to you, I will spend the rest of my life taking care of them."

She nodded, a sigh of relief escaping her. "Good. When do you think they'll let me come home?"

"I don't know. You want me to go out there and ask?"

"Yes. I want to be home, snuggling with the two men I love more than life."

Stephen nodded slightly and stood, going in search of one of the doctors.


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