Disclaimer: Primeval does not belong to me. This is fan fiction, not for profit.
Any references to people, places, businesses, etc. are entirely fictitious.
Cutter's Card
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The team was still new when the first Valentine's Day card appeared in the offices of the group that would someday be called the ARC. Professor Nick Cutter had taken a sabbatical, or an indefinite leave of absence if anomalies continued to occur, from Central Metropolitan University.
"You need to sign for this delivery," ordered Lester.
The Scot looked up from his desk in time to see the bureaucrat gesture with his hand. Behind Lester, a delivery man moved forward with a heavily laden trolley. The man in blue coveralls wheeled the stacked boxes into Cutter's new office in a corner of their temporary location.
"What this?" asked Cutter. Bushy blonde eyebrows crinkled up in puzzlement as his blue eyes gazed at the scene before him.
"CMU needs your old office for the adjunct professor," explained Lester as the delivery man turned to leave. "We had your desk and office cleared out. All your personal papers and effects were brought here to the home office building."
The delivery man disappeared as Cutter struggled to contain his temper. The Scot glared at the government official standing before him.
"And you didn't think I might want to pack my own stuff?" asked the professor. His brogue sounded a bit more pronounced as it did when he was angry.
"When would you have time for that?" asked Lester.
Cutter had to acknowledge there was some truth to the bureaucrat's question. It had been two months since the first anomaly at the Forest of Dean and a week since the second anomaly in the underground. Evaluating the data from the two anomalies had kept the professor busy, as well as checking on his injured lab assistant, but Cutter wasn't going to admit that to Lester.
"Perhaps sometime between the scutosaurus and the atheropleura," answered Cutter.
The sound that came from Lester could only be described as a snort. Of disbelief or derision, Cutter couldn't be sure. Lester kept the administrative wheels turning. The bureaucrat maintained funding for their work, security with Captain Ryan and his team, and connections with the ministry and Whitehall. This afternoon, remembered Cutter, there was a meeting scheduled to discuss anomalies and determine the continued existence, or not, of this new department. That Lester thought it worthwhile to bring Cutter's office contents from the university to this building seemed to indicate something.
"Her majesty's government paid for the packing and delivery," reminded Lester. The green eyed man smirked a bit and adjusted the cufflinks on his fine Italian suit. "But you can certainly take care of the unpacking."
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Connor Temple returned about an hour later. Cutter's lab assistant, Stephen Hart, had not yet been released from the hospital, so the young graduate student had been helping the professor out. Connor found Nick sitting at his desk with a large paleontology book open before him. The trolley loaded with boxes was pushed up against the rear wall of the office. Only one box was open. Some of the contents had been laid out upon the other boxes, but it was obvious that Cutter had stopped the unpacking when he reached the book he now held.
"Where did the boxes come from?" asked Connor.
The dark haired young scientist looked puzzled. The trolley and its contents hadn't been there when he had left to go to take the daily electromagnetic readings at the anomaly in the underground.
"CMU," grunted the professor without looking up from the book. "Lester had my office cleared out and everything brought over here."
Connor glanced at the boxes. The heavy laden trolley contained nearly two dozen boxes, but it didn't seem enough to include everything the professor had accumulated in his university office over the last decade.
"I can give you a hand unpacking," offered Connor.
Cutter grunted again and nodded, so the student took off his fedora and began. Books on shelves was simple enough. Artifacts next to the books, visible, so if the professor wanted to move them later he could find things easily. Cutter continued reading, oblivious to his student's work. It wasn't until Connor reached the bottom layer of boxes that the younger man had a problem.
"Eww!" exclaimed Connor. His shoulders slumped.
"What?" asked Cutter. The professor laid down the pen beside the pad where he had been jotting down notes. The Scot looked over at his assistant.
"They packed the garbage," answered Connor. The technical geek looked at the contents of the box in dismay. "I suppose we should just throw this out in the bin, right?"
The Scot stood up and walked over beside the boxes. The professor glanced at all the books and artifacts now displayed on shelves in his new office. The remaining boxes on the trolley must be the actual contents of his university desk. The box Connor now held smelled, and it looked like fruit flies were swarming around the top of the garbage canister. Cutter reached forward and plucked the pink binder off the top of the trash pile.
"Everything but this," agreed Cutter.
The student's dark brown eyes lit up. Connor gave a huge grin.
"Really?"
"I haven't finished reading it," answered Cutter. "And it will probably need a lot of revisions based on our new discoveries."
Connor nodded his head up and down with excitement.
"You go have lunch," continued Cutter, "I'll finish unpacking the rest."
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Cutter put the pink binder in his topmost desk drawer and hoped he wasn't making a mistake encouraging the young man. The professor had originally tossed his graduate student's thesis. However, working together over the past two months, the professor had come to appreciate the excitable young man's brain. Maybe the thesis could be salvaged, or at least be entertaining reading. The Scot began to go through the remaining boxes.
"Bin… bin… desk," muttered the professor as he opened the boxes and sorted through the contents of his former university desk.
Half an hour later, Cutter opened the last box. His wife Helen's picture stared up at him. Cutter had a similar picture on the desk at his home. Beside her photograph a nautilus shell was placed atop a red envelope.
"Hmmph," muttered Cutter.
A tapping sound came from the doorway. Cutter looked up and across his office.
"Missed you at lunch," called a soft voice.
Claudia Brown, the team's primary liaison with all things weird in the home office reports, was standing at the doorway to Cutter's office. Cutter quickly closed the lid on the box before him. The Scot's face crinkled up in a smile.
"Sorry," replied the professor. He gestured at the boxes and stuff scattered throughout his office. "I lost track of time."
The tawny haired woman held a plate up invitingly.
"I brought you a sandwich," explained Claudia. She smirked. "Don't want you passing out at this afternoon's meeting. You know how Lester is about health and safety."
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Cutter hated meetings. And the meeting in the windowed office today was worse than usual. The professor stood beside Claudia Brown. Together they saw a short film of his student and the still open anomaly in the underground. However, the assembled bureaucrats didn't seem to understand the significance of the anomalies. Cutter tried to explain.
"A fourth dimension, as real…"
Lester interrupted, taking control of the meeting.
"Official policy has yet to be determined," stated the government official.
Cutter blinked in surprise. The same man that authorized spending government funds to move Cutter' office contents from CMU was now stalling. However, before Cutter could ask Lester about it, another man interrupted with a message. Lester read it and looked up at the assembled group.
"Good Lord," said Lester. "It looks like we have another one."
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It was late when Cutter returned to his office that evening. One anomaly, opening at three different locations in the course of one day… that was new. And Helen, his wife, was back. Alive. After eight years of not knowing what had happened to her, Nick now knew she had gone off exploring… without a thought in the world for him or his grief. He opened the box and looked at the photograph.
"Did you ever love me?" whispered Cutter.
Cutter's hand reached inside the box and picked up the red envelope. The card inside was something Nick had purchased in preparation for Valentine's Day eight years ago. But then he and Helen had another row, and she left for the Forest of Dean without him that February morning. After she disappeared, Nick had kept the card, as he had kept the good memories of their marriage, but Cutter now knew their relationship had been over for all those years.
"Time to move on," said Cutter as he tossed the red envelope with Helen's name scrawled across it into the bin.
The Scot looked at the remaining contents of the box and reached in again, intending to finish the sorting process. The sound of his office door opening behind Nick stopped him.
"Oh good," said Claudia, "you're still here."
Cutter turned to see the beautiful Home Office representative. Unbidden, his thoughts leapt to the memory of the feel of her lips on his earlier that afternoon. Mouth to mouth resuscitation, the breath of life. An earlier memory, of their first meeting, also came to mind.
"Unpacking my desk stuff," explained the Professor.
"Well you will just have to repack it," commented Claudia, "when we move to the new facility."
"What?" asked Cutter. "Where are we moving? What new facility?"
Claudia looked flustered for a moment.
"Oh sorry, I wasn't supposed to mention it yet," explained the feisty woman. "Lester is trying to get us into a separate facility, one with labs and room for creatures if needed, but it's still a work in progress."
"Well if it is a work in progress like the construction on Farrington Road, maybe I should settle in this office for a long time," chuckled Cutter.
Claudia chuckled too, but they both knew Lester had a way of getting things done. The home office representative tilted her head to one side. Claudia had taken her hair out of the braid she had worn earlier that day. The long locks now cascaded attractively around her face.
"Some of us are going out to the pub," added Claudia, "to celebrate Stephen getting out of the hospital. Do you want to come?"
Cutter's lips curled up in a grin.
"Yeah," replied Cutter. "I'd like that."
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