From Where We're Standing [3/8]

[shadowcat]

Title: From Where We're Standing
Author: enochiansigils and not_from_stars
Fandom: Primeval
Pairing/Characters: Abby Maitland/Hilary Becker, Implied Stephen Hart/Hilary Becker
Rating/Category: PG-13
Summary: Two years ago, Stephen walked away from the Anomaly Research Project and vowed never to set foot near an anomaly again. However, when Nick Cutter calls him for help, he can't say no. Abby Maitland is lost on the other side of an anomaly and her time is running out. Stephen agrees immediately, because he's still in love with Abby. He wants to get her back and let her know how he feels. However, there's a complication that he hadn't expected. Captain Becker -- Abby's boyfriend and Stephen's ex...
Words: 36,000
Notes: Written for casestory Big Bang 2011. We want to thank our wonderful artists for this: weaselett, sexycazzy, and pink_flame_87. Thank you guys so very much for the gorgeous art you made for us!










Stephen hadn't been expecting that. He probably should've, but he hadn't. "Hilary, what the hell?"

"You are not telling my girlfriend that you love her," he growled. "And the name is Becker!"

"Funny, you used to like it when I called you Hilary," Stephen said with a smirk. "And you bloody loved it when I moaned your name."

Becker's fist came up again. "You lost that right when you were a bastard and walked out without even a goodbye."

Stephen managed to dodge another blow. "You deserved better, but I had to do it."

"Fuck you," Becker said, the epithet surprising him even as he said it. "I don't care what stories you come up with to make yourself feel better. I don't believe them and I don't need you here to mess up things again." His eyes were hard. "You stay the hell away from Abby."

"It's not a story," Stephen said. "It's the truth. I was doing it for you." He arched an eyebrow. "And why the telling me to stay away? Afraid I really could take her from you?"

Becker's eyes were hard. "Shut up, Stephen. Don't you dare say what I can tell you're thinking."

"Afraid she doesn't love you enough?"

Hi, Stephen, just hit a nerve or two while you're at it.

"I have no doubts about Abby's feelings for me." Becker was proud of himself that his voice didn't waver at all -- even if he was still thinking about the fight they'd had before she disappeared. "Abby loves me and I love her. She's my life and nothing will change that."

"She's your life, but are you hers? Can you really say I don't stand a chance at getting her?"

"She loves me," Becker repeated. "She loves me and you can just forget anything you might be thinking about trying."

"I don't give up easily, Becker. You know that. You used to like that about me, after all."

"You've made a horrible habit of ruining people's lives, Hart, and that's just not attractive at all. It just took me awhile to realize that."

"I made your life pretty damn good for years."

"And then one day you decided to destroy it, so I wouldn't sound so cocky if I were you."

"You wouldn't say that if you knew."

"I do know. She's mine and I'm hers."

"Not that. You wouldn't say I decided to destroy it if you knew why I left."

"I know all I need to know about you, Hart. I let you into my life where no one else had ever been, and you threw all of that care and trust back in my face. I don't need to hear any more of your excuses or your lies. You're here to help me find Abby, and that's all."

"No, I"m here to find Abby and get a chance to tell her what I have to tell her. What she does with that is up to her."

"Damn you," Becker hissed. "For just once in your life, do the right thing and keep your mouth shut. She's happy and I'm happy and we don't need you trying to make waves."

"Why are you so worried about me just telling her?" Stephen asked. "Because really, if you two are in love as much as you say you are, me telling her I love her won't do a thing."

"Because she doesn't need that dropped on her! Not when she cared about you and you walked away from her the same way you did from me. Just leave her alone, Hart. I'm warning you."

"She and I didn't have anything for me to ruin by walking away."

"She gave you her heart and you threw it back at her," Becker seethed. He shook his head and picked up the pace. "Blind and stupid git."

"I never intended to hurt her, which is something else I plan on telling her."

"Far kinder if you just keep your mouth shut, let her thank you for helping to find her and then just leave."

"I don't want to just leave, Becker. I want her to be a part of my life."

"No," Becker roared, turning to face him. "Damn you, no! You gave up any chance of having that. This is my life now and you need to get that through your thick head and leave us alone. The only reason you're here is because Cutter thought to call you and tell you that she was in trouble!"

"She may not even want me," Stephen said with a shrug. "Probably won't, if you're right about things. And she may not even want me in her life in any way. So why don't you give her a choice instead of deciding for her that she can't have me around?"

"Because it's my job to protect her and keep her safe!"

"In the field, Captain. Not everywhere."

"That's where you're wrong, Hart. I don't keep her safe and protect her as part of the job. I do that because I love her and I promised her that I would."

"How do you know I'd hurt her?" Stephen asked as they walked. "Maybe she'd take it as a chance to punch my lights out and tell me to sod off."

"Because you already did," the other man snarled as they reached the river and then climbed up to the caves that were there. Just like Abby had said they would be when she was studying other eras. "It's my place to make sure you don't get a chance to again." He shrugged out of one of the backpacks. "I'll take first watch."

Stephen didn't argue, just found himself a place to sit down and sat.



Night fell just as quickly as Becker had expected it to. They couldn't light a campfire yet because it might attract predators. However, each of the packs had a suitable amount of rations. They weren't the best things in the world, but they were full of energy. No matter how he might feel about Stephen personally, this was the man that was working to help him find Abby. Wordlessly, he handed him one of the meals and then went to stand in the mouth of the cave. He was looking out over the landscape, thinking about the last time he had seen Abby.

And pretty much kicking himself over letting the conversation build into the fight that it had.

"Damn it, Abby my girl, where are you?"

Stephen watched Becker as he ate. There was so little of the man he'd known in the man before him. It was unsettling, really. The man he was looking at was snarky, sarcastic, fiercely overprotective. His Hilary had been like that, to a degree, but there was still something so different about him now.

"I don't know you, Becker." The words were out before he could stop them. "I knew Hilary, but I don't know you." And God, in some part of him deep inside, that hurt to admit.

"You're not going to know Becker, either. We're going to find my Abby and then you're going to leave again. After all, you're really good at that." Becker wouldn't even look at him right now.

"Becker, please. Hate me if you want, but please, believe me when I say there was an actual reason for my leaving."

Becker's voice was cold when he responded. "I don't care enough about you to hate you."

Stephen didn't say anything to that, he just went pale.

Becker still didn't look at him. "I'm going to check a perimeter. You should get some rest. There could be trouble tomorrow."

"Okay," Stephen said quietly. It wasn't that he still wanted Becker, necessarily, because he wanted Abby. It was just that it hurt deeply to know that the man he'd left to protect no longer even cared enough to hate him.

Becker left the cave with a flashlight and his gun. He was thorough as he searched around the cave to make sure that there was no immediate danger to them. He may not be happy about Stephen being here, but he would keep him alive to get back home.

No matter how much he would really like to just beat the other man within an inch of his life. It was bad enough that Stephen had walked out on him without a word and now wanted to explain himself. But, he also wanted to tear his life apart again by trying to take Abby from him. What kind of man told another man's girl that he was in love with her?

He wasn't in any better of a mood when he made his way back to the mouth of the cave. He sat right inside, with his back against the cave wall. From this position, he could watch outside and anything that happened inside the cave as well.

Stephen had finished eating and had curled up to sleep. He wasn't managing terribly well at it, since every few minutes he'd just end up watching Becker for a minute before trying to sleep for a few minutes and starting the cycle all over again.

Becker was also grabbing only minutes of rest at a time. Every time he got himself to sleep, he either saw better times with Stephen in his mind -- or he saw Abby laying somewhere hurt. Neither image was conducive to getting any kind of rest.

When dawn finally started to break, Becker got up and walked around, getting his muscles warmed up. The radio crackled to life as his teams started checking in with him. After going over their orders, Becker then set about taking care of setting up breakfast for him and Stephen.

Such as it was.

"We have to find her today," he finally said into the silence. "It's been over a week. She probably hasn't had food or any water. She's in trouble."

"We'll find her," Stephen said. "Like you said, we have to. So we're going to." He didn't want to admit it, but he was every bit as terrified of losing Abby as Becker was, just for entirely different reasons.

"If anything goes wrong, you get your ass back to the anomaly site and wait for it to open," he said firmly as he stood up. "I'm not losing any one else out here and until Abby is found, your safety is my responsibility. If we get attacked, you get the hell out of here as fast as you can."

"I will," Stephen said with a nod. He didn't like what was going on, not by any means, and he certainly didn't like having this tension between himself and his ex, but he wasn't going to deal with it now. Not when they needed to get moving.

"Good. Because I'm not going to have to face Professor Cutter and tell a good man that I lost his best friend." He swung up a newly packed backpack on his shoulder and grabbed his gun. "Let's get started. We have a few hours before it decides if it's going to get really hot or not."

"Then let's make the most of those hours," Stephen said, wisely choosing not to make any of the half a dozen smart-ass jokes that'd gone through his head.



Becker hated everything about this. Hated that his girlfriend was lost and hurt. Hated that his ex was apparently their only halfway decent chance at finding Abby. Hated that he kept watching Stephen at random moments. Just... everything about it.

He didn't know what he was going to do about Stephen, he honestly didn't. Because he was pretty sure that Abby was going to want to thank Stephen for finding her, which meant there would be talking which in turn meant Stephen would have the perfect opportunity to tell Abby how he felt.

That filled Becker with far more fear than he wanted to admit to. Because no matter how much he protested, how confident he pretended to be, Stephen had managed to undermine him. Had managed to start driving a wedge in. Had managed to make him start doubting.

Oh, he didn't doubt that Abby loved him. Or that she would choose him. But he was starting to worry that maybe she'd still want Stephen, anyway.

He hated the worry. Hated that Stephen had put it in his head.

Just one more way Stephen had ruined his life and screwed with his head. Hart was pretty damn good at doing that.

And yet he couldn't bring himself to wish he'd never met the other man. Because there'd been good times. A lot of them. Until Stephen had walked out on him, there'd been nothing but good times.

But then had come the one emotionally catastrophic bad time and there you had it.

He looked over at Stephen, watching the other man for a moment as he scanned the ground for any signs of Abby's having been in the area. He hated being so dependent on him, and at that moment he hated Cutter for bringing Stephen into things.

But if Stephen could find Abby, this would all be worth it.



Abby knew she was in serious trouble.

She didn't know for sure how long she had been down here, but it was perfectly clear that no one was going to find her if she stayed in one place. Something had happened to her men and not a one of them had responded to her cries for help.

She had no water and no food and she was blind. This was not the ingredients for a very optimistic ending for her. Anyone else would be dead now, but Abby Maitland wasn't anyone else.

She managed to drag her body away from where she had fallen. Carefully, she had found the direction the opening of this rock prison was. She had waited until she could feel where the heat was coming from during the day and had dragged herself to that spot. The opening of the cave was far above her head, but now she knew where to direct her cries for help.

The problem with this was the strain of moving her body caused her to lose consciousness again. The last thought she had before she passed out was of Becker.



Stephen was starting to get discouraged, not that he was going to admit that to Becker. Or to himself. Because getting discouraged meant maybe missing something important, the last thing he wanted to happen. So he was pushing aside all the worries in favor of focusing on searching.

There were a few things that could have been traces of Abby but also could have been wishful thinking; despite that, he pointed them out anyway. The last thing either of them needed was for him to dismiss something only to have it turn out to be a clue.

So he pointed them out, kept searching, and started praying.

He was starting to think all the praying in the word wouldn't help, though.



"Damn it," Becker cursed as they came across the fourth body. This body seemed to be completely crushed before something fed on it. "This is the last man that was on Abby's team." The tears caught in his throat.

He had given these guys the most rigorous training possible and then had picked them to be Abby's security team.

He went to the edge of the cliff. It looked like there had been a stampede here... and then Becker caught sight of something that made his heart clench.

He took off, sliding down the hill near the cliff. He could hear Stephen following down behind him. He didn't care. He got down to where he saw the item that had reflected the sun back up the hill. They were covered in blood and Becker tried not to panic.

"What is it, Becker?"

"Dog tags," he forced out through stiff lips. "A special set that got put together. One tag has all of my information from my military service. The other tag has Abby's information on it. I wear a set like it."

"Abby was never in the military. She wouldn't have dog tags."

"She had them and there is blood all over them." He pulled the tags over his head and they lay perfectly against the set he was already wearing. He cupped his hands around his mouth.

"ABBY!" He yelled. "ABBY!"

Stephen picked up the shout, yelling Abby's name and praying they'd hear a response. Because with the dog tags having been found... she had to be close. She had to be close, but they couldn't see her.

"Abby! Abby, my girl, where are you?!"

Stephen tilted his head, listening. "Yell again," he said. "I can't tell if I heard something or not."

"ABBY! ABBY!"

"Damn it," Stephen swore quietly. "I hear something and I can't tell if it's her or just ambient noise!"

Becker yelled again, but all he heard coming back was the echoes of his own calls.

"We're making camp near here," he decided. "She has to be somewhere around here. She has to be."

"I'll take first watch in a bit," Stephen said. "Keep listening, see if I can figure out what I'm hearing."

Part of Becker wanted to argue at that, but right now he was trying not to show that he was even more frantic than he had been originally. The last thing he was going to was fall apart in front of bloody Stephen Hart.

"That's fine. I'll radio our location and let them contact Professor Cutter with what we've found so far."

Stephen just nodded slightly and tilted his head, listening for the sounds he'd heard. He'd heard something, he knew it.



When Abby regained consciousness again, it took her a few moments to orient herself with what she needed to do. Obviously she couldn't stand. Every single time she tried, her legs crumpled out from under her. She propped herself up on her side, but she would only be able to hold that position for a short amount of time before she collapsed flat again.

By now, she was almost sobbing, but there was a lack of moisture in her body that could be spared to make tears. If she didn't get someone to hear her soon, she was going to die down here. She knew that it was only by some miracle that she had lasted so long -- and that a predator hadn't found her and made a meal out of her yet.

The cool air coming from above meant that the sun had already set, and that meant that the chances of her being heard were a lot smaller. She didn't doubt that there would be people out looking for her even after dark, but it being dark would make finding the opening to this place a lot more difficult.

She rolled over onto her uninjured side and propped herself up with her arm. She could feel her muscles trembling and bit her lip. This had to work. She had to keep herself conscious long enough to direct the searchers to her location. It had become important that she make her mind and determination overcome the fact that her body was shutting down on her.

Taking a deep breath, Abby started screaming. "HELP! Someone, help me!"

She kept this up for a few moments before her arm gave out and she fell back onto the cold dirt. She gasped, coughing from the pain and from the dirt she had unintentionally inhaled. She cried silently, her entire body shuddering from the exertion she was forcing from it.

She dropped her head on her arm, trying to get her breath back. She had to keep trying. She had to do her best to make sure she would be heard.

"HELP! I need help!"

Her voice was starting to fade too quickly for her liking. Already her shouts were sounding no louder than whispers.

"Please," she whimpered into her arm. "Please god, don't let me die down here."





Part Two | Part Four

Comments

[reggietate.livejournal.com]

Eep! Not looking good for Abby! Good chapter.

[lsellersfic.livejournal.com]

Just a quick note to let you know I'm working my way through this!! Anxiously hoping Becker and Stephen find Abby in time and that Stephen stops being a prat!

Incidentally, I couldn't find this through the denial tags when I went looking. I'm sure you originally posted it to denial but it didn't seem to be under either of your author tags, or under abby/becker. I ended up googling for it!!

[shadowcat]

I hope you enjoy!

Yipes. Thanks for letting me know. I've gone in and fixed that!